The Prophecy
by thedorkygirl
Summary: With the threat of war looming ever closer, the crew must prevent Nebari participation in the conflict of a lifetime. A new crewmember must show them the truth that they didn't know they seeked. Before Fractures AU. GIVEN UP.
1.

The Prophecy

_Author_: Keren Ziv  
_Disclaimer_: I don't own Farscape, I wish I did, but I don't.  
_Rating_: G  
_Category_: sort of action adventure/myth/fable  
_Author's Note_: Do you like this one? I dunno how it works, but it flows (to me) better than the last one did, so I'm good, ya know. ;) Think of this as what may have happened after Revenging Angel instead of Fractures. Oh, and am I a John/Aeryn shipper? Let's just say that when I saw my first eppy (EFG) that I immediately said that they should get jiggy. However, I enjoy a good challenge, so I'm almost perfectly happy with the way that everything has worked out so far in the Farscape series. :ducks rotten tomatoes:

_.01_

___There is a fable among the Nebari people. It is a well-known tale, worn by many centuries of use and oral passage. When it is spoken, it is often in hushed tones, with every word carefully chosen. The speaker will often have the Nebari sacred text, the book of Giaun, open in their laps as they speak. With the Giaun open they have protection while their telling of the tale._

___It is a forbidden tale. The Giaunas, the holy men of Giaun, call it a blasphemous story of heretics. The conformist party of the Nebari people says it is a wistful and incorrect translation of the Giaun. Both agree that it surface before the official Giaun was written in the new translation, yet both dispute the accuracy of the story._

___The people dispute what they are frightened of. They run when the unfamiliar is brought to them and shown to their incredulous faces. They will defend the lies and run against the truth to keep everything as it is._

___The Giaun was written with the truth in mind. It was written in ancient Nebari, when the tongue was still widely known and used. For cycles after the sacred text was first completed, the language was used. When the dialect changed, the Nebari people studied in their ancient tongue diligently, so that they would be able to read the Giaun and understand it's meaning._

___The practice faltered, however, after the cycles washed away the awe of the old tongue. The people wished for an easier way to read their holy book. They commissioned the government to translate the Giaun into Commonday Nebari. The language had evolved so differently from its first form that the two were not distinguishable as related tongues._

___The Giaunas refused to read the newly translated version of the Giaun. They spoke against it, saying that the beauty and wonder could not be carried over from the language of its origin to Commonday Nebari. They argued that those schooled to speak the ancient tongue were schooled to think it, and therefore they were schooled to understand the complex and wonderful meanings and messages imprinted in every word of the Giaun._

___After a few cycles, the older Giaunas died off and left in their stead the malleable young holy men. These newer Giaunas read the translated versions of the Giaun and if they saw any differences, they kept their mouths shut. It is widely said that the story of Giaun and the book of Giaun are one and the same._

___Of course, there are those who say that the old Giaunas had seen the changes the government made and had been afraid to speak out against it. There are those that say the story of Giaun is the true book of Giaun, not what has been released by the Giaunas and the government. They say that the book of Giaun as it is today is merely a front for the government. They scorn the book and all political messages that it gives, and search for an un-translated version of Giaun to support their claims that the story and book are the same._

___And those most vocal about that soon die.  
_

John Crichton stood up slowly from the chair in which he had been seated, stretching to relieve the tension in his back that he felt. His knees pained him when he moved, a telltale sign that he had been sitting too long. Wearily, he tossed his pen down onto his desk and began the process of tidying up his workspace.

The notebook page on which he had been writing was covered with his script. First, it was in the neat, blockish writing from when he had just been starting that session of going over wormhole equations. Somewhere along the middle of the page there seemed to be a decline in the overall health of the handwriting, and by the end of the page everything was in a definite scrawl.

"I do my homework and turn in all my class work, but I still don't understand the material, Miss Crabtree," he murmured absentmindedly to himself as he brushed the lint from his shirt. "Aw, hell, I need to get out of here. I'm talking to myself and Harvey ain't even around."

As if it were some sort of cue, the Sebecean-Scarran hybrid popped up. He was dressed down, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a wife beater tee shirt. John had half-a-microt thought on how Harvey was certainly not as thin and bony as one would think before the neural clone began speaking.

Scorpy flashed out a gloved fist against a large, red punching bag which had appeared in the middle of John's Quarters. "Float like a butterfly " thwap, "sting like a bee " thwap. "How are you doing, John?" Harvey desisted with the bag and walked over to John.

"Harvey, nice to see you. Wish and delivery is immanent, eh?" John walked passed the Peacekeeper and out into the corridor, pushing the punching bag away when he passed. The bag had turned purple with yelled squares dotted all over.

"If that is the way that you wish to see it, yes." The clone was to his right, matching him stride for stride. He skirted impatiently over a DRD that had zoomed towards him without slowing it's pace. "Do not blame me for this impromptu meeting. You called it."

John shook his head. "Look, Harvey, all I did was comment on the fact that I seem to be even more insane than usual. Then you popped up. I think you were just bored and itching for a chance to talk to me." John stopped and let Jool pass. "Hey, Jool. Howya doin'?"

The Interon flashed him a glance. John cursed the neural clone, who happened to be standing directly behind Jool, making bunny-ears and moose-horns over the crest of her hair. "I'm just off to wash my hair, John."

"Just make sure you pick up all the loose strands and put 'em in the trash when you're done," John told her as Scorpy pulled back his cheeks, imitating the facial features of Jool as closely as possible with full leather on.

"Crichton," Jool chided. John threw his hands up into the air, flashing her a grin, before walking on.

"Well done, John," Scorpy said, now dressed in a 1930s dress and apron ensemble. "I give you an A for effort and an A- for execution. She did get a bit angry, you know."

"Miss Crabtree didn't wear her apron to school," John informed him. "Remember? I think the only time she ever wore the apron was when Chubby tried to hit on her.

'Ah, don't call me Chubby, Miss Crabtree. Call me Chubsey-Ubsey.' Or did she wear the apron? I have to get my tapes out and review that."

"Funny, John." The clone was now dressed in baggy black jeans and a black tee shirt with white lettering on it. The word 'Metallica' was there, along with a picture of the band.

"Yes, I thought so. I mean, here I am, in the middle of nowhere, talking about the Little Rascals with somebody in my head that only I can see. Hell, I'm the only human here and you're the only Scarran-Sebecean hybrid, so we might as well become good friends, right?"

"I prefer Sebecean-Scarran hybrid, John."

"You like to use my name a lot, don't ya, ol' buddy, ol' pal?" John turned to look, but the hybrid was gone. "And you like to leave me in the middle of a passageway, talking to myself, don't you?" There was no answer. "Frell it."

"Commander Crichton." John's comm crinkled to life indignantly, causing him to jump in his skin and swear. "You are a quarter of an arn late for your shift in command."

"Sorry, Pilot," John said. "I got a little hung up in the corridor. I'll be right there. Tell D'argo not to worry." He mentally cursed himself for spending so much time on the wormhole equations and then dawdling when he hadn't the time to spare.

When John reached command, however, he didn't see D'argo there waiting impatiently. He saw Chiana, her face a mixture of amusement and worry. She raised an eyebrow at him as he jogged in.

"Jool comm'd and told me that you'd been having an animated conversation with a DRD, and that you might be a while. I hope that Pilot brought you out of whatever subject you were immersed it."

"Ah, yes," John said. "John Crichton, astro-nut, talking to thin air. It's gotta give the girl a bit to worry about."

"The air isn't thin, John," Pilot's indignant voice came. "The atmosphere is perfectly suited to you." The clamshell image showed Pilot in his Chamber, his many arms going about, doing their various tasks. "The readings from the corridor, and the tier, even, show that the oxygen level their is more than sufficient for your species."

"It's a human expression. You know how thin air makes people dizzy and a little bit crazy? Not enough oxygen to the brain? Well, when people start acting oddly, it's like they are showing symptoms of thin air."

"Nebaris have that expression," Chiana informed him. "Only we say that they are talking to the air of the heights or that they're mountain-headed."

"Both make sense in complements to the human expression." Pilot looked relieved to learn that it was just another of John's crazy Earthisms. "I will, however, keep the atmospheric scrubbers on a higher setting than usual for a few arns, to make certain that the air is of good quality."

"So, Pip, why're you here instead of D'argo?" John sat down next to Chiana, crossing his arms across his chest in a nonchalant fashion.

"D'argo was busy with his ship, see, and I thought he could use a little bit more time with it. He looked like he was having a really good time . . . " Chiana's voice trailed off. "So I volunteered myself. It's not like I had anything better to do."

John leaned over and ruffled her hair affectionately. "You're a good kid, Chi," he told her. Chiana grinned in response and began rearranging her hair into its original state. "Hey, wait a second . . . did you cut your hair again?"

Chiana laughed. "Took a while for you to notice, John," she told him. "Not that anyone has mentioned it, actually. It's just hair." She tilted her head to one side, grinning at him.

"Well, it looks very pretty," John informed her. "Though I do wonder what you'd look like with hair long enough to actually pull out of your face." His teasing tone was helped along with one of his charming smiles as he pulled one of Chiana's bangs down. "Always in your eyes," he chastised her.

"Well, if I let it grow, it'd be even more in my eyes." Chiana offered this bit of advice with a swat to John's fingers. "Then where would I be?" She threw back her shoulders a bit, waiting. John merely smiled. "Why, then you would complain that I let my hair grow too long to deal with."

"No I wouldn't," John told her. "I'd buy you hairclips. Lots and lots of hairclips. Then I would show you how to clip it back behind your ears and how to braid it in teeny tiny braid like my sisters use to wear."

"You had sisters?" Chiana's voice came out softly curious.

"Uh huh. Two. They were after-thought children, born when I was sixteen. Mom and Dad didn't expect to have one new baby, and when the second one came four years later they most certainly were even more surprised, especially since mom was pretty old to be having kids. Well, thirty-eight, but that's still older than most human women are."

"Your mother was eighteen when you were born?" Chiana seemed truly shocked. "She was nothing more than a child herself. I thought you said that she was a scientist. Did she have schooling to do?"

"Yes, and she did it. She completed all her studies. Of course, my Dad was a huge help. He was older than Mom by about ten years, and he was all ready done with all his stuff and on the pathway to a successful career in the stars. I spent a lot of my time with my grandparents when I was a young child."

"How old are your sisters right now?" Chiana had his hand and was absentmindedly weaving her fingers in and out of his. The cool gray hand felt small in John's own.

"Patti is eighteen years old, now. She was just fourteen when I left. Jaci is thirteen or fourteen, but she was almost ten when I did my Farscape run." John closed his eyes a microt, remember Patti's dark hair that seemed to never decided between brown or blonde and Jaci's blonde locks which she had defiantly died 'cineberry' red when she was alone for the afternoon.

"Pa'tee and Jack'ee. After your father, John?" Chiana lifted a hand and brushed a fingertip across her eyelid to get rid of an irritation there.

John laughed. "Actually, no. My father's name is John, the same as mine, but Jack is a nickname for John. Do you see how that works?" When Chiana nodded, with a small shrug of her petite frame, John continued. "Jacquelyn Diane Crichton was named after my maternal grandmother. Patricia Kay Crichton was named after my paternal grandmother."

"You talk a lot, John." Chiana's statement was quiet. "I said nothing, and you prattled on and on and on and on and on. We can't shut you up, can we?"

"Wait a minute!" John said, laughing. "You said a lot more with body language than I said with my tongue! You asked questions, I answered them! It isn't my fault."

Chiana leaned forward, letting her body graze against John's. "Just what sort of language am I speaking? I was never taught to speak anything except Commonday. Just when was I supposed to learn this new one? I think your translator microbes are on the fritz."

Just at the moment, a high pitched scream reached their ears. Chiana leaned back quickly and adjusted her shirt. "What the frell has gotten into her this time?" she complained. "I swear, I will kill her when I reach her."

"Aw, Pip, c'mon. Don't be so hard on Princess. I'm sure you know how painful breaking a nail really is." John glanced down at Chiana's perfectly trimmed nails and grinned. "Then again, maybe not. Hey, where do you get your manicures?"

"I take care of my nails myself, John Crichton, and you know that. We don't have the extra credits or the need to pay people to do something I can do all by myself." As they were talking, both John and Chiana had been making their way down towards where they had heard the scream. "Pilot, what the frell has happened?"

"I am not sure, Chiana. Jool will not answer her comms," Pilot said. "In fact," Pilot continued, "all she seems to be doing at the moment is screaming. However, I do have a DRD tracking her movements. I do believe she is on your tier. Actually, Commander Crichton, if you turn left at the next intersection, you will face her as she's coming down and towards her quarters."

"Hangin' a left, right now," John said, grabbing Chiana's wrist and pulling her along with him. "Thank you, Pilot." John slowed a bit to allow Chiana to jog alongside him before continuing at a swifter pace. "All's okay there, Pip?" he asked, glancing at her.

"Just, eh, what's that word you use? Peech'ee, John." Chiana snaked her hand up his arm. "Though your grip was a little tight. Mind treating me less like a Pulse rifle and more like damageable goods?" Her eyes flickered to his holster, where John had his newest Pulse rifle. He had called it Naomi and explained the relationship between the names as best he could to Chiana. "Or, actually, start treating me more like a Pulse rifle."

"Will do, babe, as soon as you shoot out little balls of light whenever I ask you to," John's spirited reply came. Chiana snorted into John's shoulder. "I don't think it's a skill you can easily learn, Chi, so just be glad you don't have me treatin' you like Katie Shaw treated that ol' pop-gun of hers."

"Katie Shaw?" Chiana asked, bringing her black eyes up from the floor and the DRD she was working around. "Oomph," she said, stumbling.

"Watch it," John told her, catching her fall. "Katie was the younger sister of Karen Shaw. Had the largest collection of popguns I had ever seen. She was pretty neat for a little kid. She had this one favorite, though, that she carried everywhere allowed. It got dented when she fell on it wrong, scratched when she dropped it . . . anything bad could happen to it, you just name it, and it happened."

"Why would a little child be carrying around weapons? I thought you said that your species left weapons solely to criminals, adults, and the military." Chiana moved her neck in a circular motion, left to right. John watched her out of the corner of his eye before replying.

"It was a toy gun. Bright orange metal, red trigged, and all it did was make noise by exploding a very tiny amount of something," John shrugged, "inside of it. Popular among children, especially preadolescent boys."

"You give your children toys that imitate weaponry?" Chiana could hear whimpering, so she figured they were nearing Jool. "Is your species idiotic?" She pulled on an earlobe. "Or are they trying to train their children to be soldiers like Peacekeepers?"

"No, not soldiers," John said absentmindedly, drawing his Pulse rifle and lowering his voice to barely a whisper. "Children want to be their heroes, though, you know? Army men . . . cops . . . action figures, like the Terminator." He put a finger to his lips and said, "I'll be back."

Chiana rolled her eyes, but decided to play along with John's little game. Crossing her arms over chest, she watched as John rounded the corner that they had come upon. "Jool?" she heard him call out quietly. Then, "Holy Mother of . . . what in the world happened to your hair, Princess?" Chiana heard whimpering which she couldn't decipher. "Yeah, Pilot, call off the search and let D'argo get back to his ship. I've got her."

Chiana figured it was safe for her to come around. What she saw made her gasp with suppressed laughter. Jool was in her quarters, dripping wet, and miserable. Her hair was in rows upon rows of tangled curls. The funny part of it, aside from the fact that she looked like a minga who'd been left out in the rain, was that her hair was blue. No, not blue exactly. It looked to be an almost gray shade of blue. Chiana bit her lip, suddenly afraid that she would burst.

"and then, when I turned to dry my hair, I saw . . . . I saw this and I started screaming it was so horrible." Jool gave a huge, shuddering breath.

"Gee, Princess, it's not that bad," John's voice didn't hide his skepticism. "It's a nice color on you. It matches . . . your shoestrings. And, hey, at least you shed like a malamute in the summer. It'll all be gone in an hour."

"Why in the world would my hair turn the color of a corpse's lips?" Jool wailed. She picked up a limp strand of hair and looked at it. "It looks horrible."

"Hey!" Chiana objected. "It's not that bad. And you should have asked before you borrowed my things. I would have told you that my shampoos don't react well with hair that isn't Nebari."

"Pip, you do a dye-job on the 'do?" John asked her. Chiana stared at him. She? Color treat her hair? She would have to hurt him, and soon. John mistook her glare of anger for uncertainty and explained. "You change the color of your hair using chemicals?"

"I know exactly what you meant, John Crichton, and no I do not!" Chiana burst out. "My hair is its natural color! What would I need to change it for? That chemical treats my hair and makes sure that the shine does not go away. Nebari have mites in their hair, if you remember, and if we do not keep the proper amount in them, our hair begins to look horrible. Common hair, you'd likely hear from people if I didn't treat my hair. Slum hair, you'd hear."

"Nebari are stuck up with hair?" John asked. He then proceeded to answer his own question. "Well, of course they are. They got it in two colors. Gray or black. Which one ya gonna chose, eh? I guess the luster of your hair would be a big deal."

Chiana threw her hands up into the hair. "Stop sniveling," she ordered Jool. Jool looked up but did not comply. "Honestly, you are acting like a little baby over nothing."

"Nothing?" Jool shrieked, her green eyes flashing, "What if my hair is ruined? It'll take weekens for me to get it back to a normal coloring! And during that time I will have streaks up and down throughout my hair! I will look like some Nebari-Interon half-breed."

"Oh, I doubt they will ever allow an Interon to catch with a Nebari woman." Chiana's comment left John slightly confused, but Jool threw back her head and laughed. Chiana grinned after a microt or two. "Don't laugh, I was serious."

"Yes, that's what makes it so funny. Can you imagine a Nebari-Interon half-breed?" Jool grinned. "It would probably look pretty amazing." Her green eyes flashed as she pushed wet hair out of them. "Of course, since no decent Nebari woman would petition for a catch with an Interon, it'd have to be Interon-Nebari, eh?"

Chiana laughed at Jool's joke on the Nebari and Interon species while Jool chuckles appreciatively. "I don't the joke," John said, his blue eyes darting from one girl to the other.

"Mother's species goes first, John." So that was why Scorpy preferred Sebecean-Scarran. People would all know his mother had been Sebecean. "Everyone knows that. And everybody also remembers when Graind Chiana petitioned for a catch for that Interon, Borinxinley Tashmanta Khalemonchan, and the council took four years deciding it," Jool explained. "Oh, goodness, that was a laugh. The Interons were furious that our species wanted to have children with the Nebari, and the Nebari were equally furious that one of their own would want a half-breed with an Interon."

"I still don't get it. What does Chiana have to do with this? Chi, you wanted a kid?" John tossed Chiana an appraising look. Chiana looked at him with a half smile. "I'm lost, Pip, fill me in."

"Okay, first off, Chiana is a very popular Nebari name. It comes from our sacred text and is as close to a translation of Giaun as we are allowed to name common children," Chi tilted her head to the left.

"Wait, you have the name John in the Nebari book of Names? And it's a girl's name? Why didn't you tell me?" John touched his hair as if waiting for it to sprout into curls or pigtails.

"The Nebari ear picks up tonal differences that the human ear doesn't. Perhaps to you the name Giaun can sound identical to John, but I hear subtle differences. And it's a proud name to have, John." Chiana gave a little flip of her hair. "On to the next . . . let's see . . . Nebari conformist disapprove of interspecies breeding. Oh, the basic frelling doesn't bother them, but the production of a child does. And Nebari religion is against any form of birth control for women."

"Gray Catholics, only the men have that much more power," John muttered to himself. Jool ignored his comment and searched for a towel to dry her hair with.

"So, centuries ago, they genetically altered Nebari females. As soon as a child was born, along with translator microbes it was given, they gave a gene that, when passed on to a female child, would disallow any catching between any species other than Nebari." Chiana pulled on one of her fingers, the dropped her hands to her side.

"Wow. That's one form of birth control that sounds fool proof. So the women in your species can't have children with . . . oh, an Interon? Or a Luxan?" John dropped his hand on the bed next to Jool and drummed his fingers in the damp bedcovers, pinky to index. Chiana watched him and tried to drum index to pinky. However, she found that she too was a pinky to index person. She gave a mental shrug.

"Unless you petition to your doctor for a formula. They developed formulas for certain species when interspecies marrying became a popular thing. However, if you were marrying a species that hadn't gone into the Nebari society before, your doctor would have to petition the council for permission to make the formula. A very famous example was the one that Jool cited." Chiana gave a half-smile to Jool and shared the private joke with her.

"So Nebaris basically dissed Interons and Interons basically dissed Nebaris?" John said, pulled Chi down to sit next to him. "Don't get wet."

"I wouldn't get wet if you didn't pull me on water," Chiana muttered darkly, scowling at John out her bright black eyes. After a moment, she grinned, and rested her head on John's shoulder.

"Yes, that's exactly what happened. Nobody was satisfied with the match, except Chiana and Borinxinley, and they didn't really have a say in the council." Jool gave a satisfied toss of her head, spraying John and Chiana with a liberal amount of water. "Sorry."

John shook his head to dispel any last drops. "So I'm named after some chick named Giaun?" he said to the top of Chiana's head. She lifted her head off his shoulder and faced him, her expression serious.

"Giaun is the foundation of the Nebari religion. The book of Giaun is our holy text. The story of Giaun is passed down . . . " Chiana gave a laugh, but no explanation. Jool nodded sagely before Chiana continued. "Of course, we call our priests Giaunas. To become a senior Giauna, it takes years of study. Most don't make it until they are thirty or forty cycles old, and they are gathered for study at age twelve."

John shook himself. "It almost sounds like Chiana, but it almost sounds like Johna. That's just weird, Chi." He grabbed a handful of her thick hair and twirled it around his finger. "Hey, look, I'm a religion. I knew that somewhere on this side of the universe, there would be thousands of women who would worship me."

"More like millions. It is the only religion on Nebar," Chiana said, laughing. "The mental picture you just gave me is hilarious. Women and young girls throwing themselves at pictures of you. Shrines set up around the worlds, all dedicated to you. Community discussions held in your honor. Stories, all written for you."

John gave a contented sigh. "Yep," he said, "I just might get a big head." He leaned backwards and stretched out on Jool's bed.

"Too late for that," Jool said morosely.

(asterisk)

Jool's hair took some time to getting back to normal. Three weekens, to be exact. John took to calling her Bride of Frankenstein, and had to explain to her what he meant by it. When she found out, she didn't speak to him for arns, but forgot during dinner and asked him to pass a plate of food. Rather than go back to not talking to him, she ignored his comments earlier and became just as friendly with him as beforehand.

D'argo was quite sympathetic to Jool's plight, and at the first commerce planet the crew visited, he came back with several bottles of herbs and shampoos, guaranteed to make her hair nice smelling, shiny, and anything else that had been advertised. Jool had welcomed the gifts with a smile and washed her hair in one that left it smelling, as John put it, "Like the White House Rose Garden."

Of course, he had to explain to Jool what he meant by that and that the name Rosie wasn't a bad name at all to be called. He also had to solemnly promise never call her Bride of Frankenstein again, or do so at great health to his notebooks.

By the time her hair was nearly back to normal nearly meaning she had about half a dozen bright strands glistening among her copper-toned hair she and Chiana had finished an elaborate doll, woven out of the strands of hair that she had shed. It had been Chiana's idea to do so and, as much to Chi's surprise as anyone else's, Jool had agreed to it.

It was about a foot long and quite elaborate. It had soft, wavy features and a good bit of long hair. Chiana had taken to calling it Stein, a Nebari name, she claimed, that meant Little Daughter. Privately, she confided to John that it was just a nickname for his Bride of Frankenstein comment.

Chi and Jool were showing off their creation to D'argo in his ship, who agreed with Jool that it was quite a good deal nicer than anything he had seen in shops, when Moya experienced what could be called a great bit of turbulence, if one could hit turbulence in vacuum. Jool went flying backwards into her chair, as did D'argo; Stein ended up on what John persisted in calling the dashboard of D'argo's ship; and Chiana landed ungracefully on her butt. She was none-the-worse for her wear and tear, though, and bounced up instantly. Jool let out a short shriek of surprise, then another for good measure.

"Pilot, what was that?" Chi asked. Turning to D'argo, she directed her next question at him. "Was it just your ship moving? Should I be worried? Shouldn't you be messing with the controls?"

"Oh, don't be silly Chiana, that was Moya, not just this ship, and even if it were D'argo's ship, we'd be perfectly safe," Jool spoke up, her voice sharp.

Chiana stared at Jool. "Right."

"Moya seems to have hit some sort of microscopic wave of meteors," Pilot said, his voice just as unbelieving as John's, who spoke next.

"Pilot, are you sure that's possible? I mean, if they are microscopic, they shouldn't be a problem to us. And if they're big enough to be a problem to us, we should be able to see them, shouldn't we?"

"Commander Crichton, this has me just as stumped as you," Pilot said testily, using one of Crichton's Earth phrases. "I am still investigating the matter. When I am more fully versed, perhaps my explanation of the events will differ. If you'd kindly wait for an answer before asking the questions, Moya and I would be much obliged."

Chiana climbed out of the ship just as John entered the maintenance bay. "Hey, John, you okay?" She readjusted her bottoms and walked over to him.

"Just fell flat on my rump when Moya decided to go over the gravel instead of the blacktop," he replied in his cheerful tone. "You?"

"Same. Jool and D'argo were lucky. They were seated and the worst harm that came to them was a sudden loss of breath while they were thrown back. Do you have any idea what could be the problem?"

"I'm on my way to command, come on," John said, motioning towards Jool and D'argo. D'argo strode forward and took the leading position. Jool pulled up to John and grabbed his arm.

"It won't happen again, John, will it?" she asked in a worried tone. "I don't want to fall, John."

"Don't know, Rosie," John replied, shifting his weight a bit. "Mind lettin' up, or getting a little more even? I'm about to topple on top of you, and that would constitute as falling down, Jool."

Jool cast him a glance before hurrying ahead to D'argo and posing the same question to him. Chiana laughed and touched his arm. "Mind if I hang a bit? I don't want to fall either," she said, grinning.

John cast her a conspirative look before whispering, "Your weight probably totals as much as that outfit Jool's wearing. Hang all you want, Pip." He wrapped an arm around her head and tousled her hair. "But ya gotta beware of the noogie police."

"John, stop it!" Chiana giggled. "You are ruining my hair." She managed to pry lose of his grip and glare at him. John reached into his back pocket and tossed her a comb, which she raked through her hair. "Thanks," she said in a slightly sulky voice.

"You're parting it all wrong," John said as they entered command. "Here, give it to me." He grabbed the comb out of her hands and proceeded to give her a straight part. "There, that's decent," he commented. Chi gave him a glare. "Oh, right, I'm sorry," he added as an afterthought. Chiana turned her back to his chest and stared at what D'argo was bringing up on the front view screen, which was clear space.

Moya rocked again, though this time not as violently as before. Jool gave yet another shriek before falling sideways into D'argo, who just barely managed not to go tumbling. Chiana, being directly in front of John, ending up flying back into him and causing both him and her to land up on the floor, somewhat tangled but unhurt.

"Next time, I'm standing next to D'argo. He's like a football player there," John commented from somewhere behind Chiana's neck. "Pilot, what the heck was that? Oh, wait "

"All data indicates that we have hit some sort of small craft both times, just above tiers twenty-seven and eighteen." Pilot's face appeared in the clamshell. John was relieved to see that he wasn't frowning. "However, sensors locate nothing anywhere that show any such readings."

"Some sort of cloaking device?" Jool asked, sitting down and drawing her legs up to her chin.

"Not this close in to Moya. It wouldn't work," Chiana said. "What part of Moya, Pilot, and how bad are the damages?" She finally found where her legs would have a decent chance of staying and planted them there, pushing herself up using John, who grunted. "Sorry, John."

"It seems to be on the same line as the view screen," Pilot said, his face anxious. "You all do not see anything that I may have missed, do you?" John glanced out the main view screen from the floor, scanning it.

"Nope, Pilot, we can't see anything abnormal out there. Just space." He stood and grabbed Chiana. "Next time, Pip, watch where you put those elbows of yours. I got it in the hollow of my neck."

"So sorry, John," Chiana said, grinning. "Want me to kiss it to make it feel better?"

"Very funny, Chia " John's words were cut off and everyone was once again thrown. John and Chiana managed to brace each other until the trembling was over, but Jool had been thrown off of her chair and D'argo had fallen onto his left side. "Well, that was creative, Jool," John said as a deeply unhappy Jool un-plastered her face from Moya's floor. "However, I don't think it'll make America's Funniest Home Videos."

"Look, everybody," Chiana said, pointing towards the view screen. For half a microt, the saw the image of a small ship flicker into view, and then out. "Pilot, is anything interfering with the view screen?"

"Nothing, Chiana, but my sensors did pick up a ship for a few microts. Did you see it, also?" Pilot asked.

"Yeah, Pilot, we, uh, did. Did anybody else notice it looked Nebari?" Chiana said, walking closer to view screen. Her hand lingered near her thigh. Out of habit, John's also went there and grabbed his Pulse rifle.

"I thought so," Jool said in a faint voice. John gave a shrug of his shoulders, though Chiana couldn't tell whether it was because he hadn't noticed the design of the ship or because Jool seemed to be a bit red in the face from hitting the floor so hard.

D'argo glanced around the room before ordering, "Pilot, deploy the docking web at the location that it is most possible the ship is in now." D'argo grabbed his Qalta blade and walked toward the docking bay.

"Moya has found the ship and is pulling it in," Pilot said as they jogged. Reaching the tier they needed, they saw that in the bay was a ship that was, as Chiana had said, of Nebari design. Everyone's weapons drawn, they waited with baited breath for the ship's doors to open.

Nothing happened. They waited for several microts before D'argo said, "Cover me," and walked towards the ship. As he was walking, the door slowly began to open. Chiana, Jool, and Crichton all moved forward several paces to be in line with D'argo.

Finally, a figure emerged. Out of the ship tumbled a small Nebari in long, blue robes. It looked to be even more petite than Chiana, and quite a few cycles younger. When the figure looked up, they surmised that it was a girl, possible six to twelve cycles old, depending on which species John was trying to judge by.

"Who're you?" Chiana asked in her quick speech.

"Giauna Thali," she said, her voice surprisingly strong. She took a tentative step forward. "Please, I have no weapons."

Chiana shook her head at John, who had been walking forward. "Now, see, I don't believe you. See, you are too young to be a Giauna. Much too young. Now, little girl, whose robes did you steal and why are you in the middle of the Uncharted Territories on a ship by yourself?"

"I didn't steal anyone's robes." Chiana snorted derisively. "They are my own," Thali insisted. "And the reason that I am alone is the fact that I fled from Nebar in fear of my life."

"No one would put a hit on a Giauna." Chi said this with a smug smile. "And back to the original factor in this you are too young to be a Giauna. You have to be twenty or thirty years younger than the average Giuana. You look too young to be even recruited yet."

Jool put down her gun and gave Chiana a withering look. "I don't know about you, but a simple Nebari girl claiming to be a priest doesn't seem at all dangerous to me," she said with raised eyebrows. "I think the bigger problem is why we couldn't see her ship. Actually, the question is why she was ramming her ship into Moya."

D'argo glanced at John, then spoke to Jool. "You don't know the Nebari," he told her sternly. "We cannot be certain that this girl isn't a threat to us. I for one am not in a mood to get mind-cleansed." Jool meekly said nothing.

"Well, just to be on the safe side, we're gonna have Pilot send some DRDs into the vehicle to check for any stowaways that you might not be away of. Pilot, think you can do a life forms scan for us?" John put his gun down and motioned to Chiana to do the same. She did, reluctantly.

"I will get on it immediately, Commander Crichton," Pilot said. "I am sending four DRDs to you right now." As he spoke, the crew saw four of Moya's yellow drones zooming into the bay on full speed. They reminded John of racing Matchbox cars when he was younger.

"Thanks, Pilot. Now, Thali, why don't you come on over here and get something to eat and then tell us everything?" John put his arm around the waist of the small Nebari. "We won't hurt you if you won't hurt us."


	2. 

The Prophecy

_Author_: Keren Ziv  
_Disclaimer_: I don't own Farscape, I wish I did, but I don't.  
_Rating_: G  
_Category_: action/adventure, I guess.  
_Author's Note_: Here is the next one. I hope it's up to snuff. I need a beta, damnit! And not the type who offer and then never do anything.

_Part .02_

__

In a house of the deepest poverty, on a night that was storming so violently that the panes in the windows rattled and from the ceiling waters dripped with a consistency unmatched ever before, there was a born a child in the town of Tiatcon.

The infant was unwanted in general, but particularly because it was of the female sex. Her parents had hoped for a male child who might be able to help his father with the farming which supported their lifestyle , however meager it was in actuality. They were so disappointed by their daughter that they left the naming of the girl to the raxura who preformed her Christening. The raxura, a kindly one who followed the words of Miráke before they were widely known, named her Exhilaration As A Girl.

Giaun with her black eyes shining may not have been the boy that her parents had hoped for, but in her own way she surpassed any wishes that they could have dreamed up. She proved to have a difficult disposition as an infant, who squirmed and threw fits, though never voicing her apparent anguish in the normal squalls a young one has. Neighbors dropped in with solutions for the colic, and, once it became clear that little Giaun was not becoming better with all of the colic remedies that were known, they began to leave medicines and herbs that were known to clear the soul of a Changeling infant.

Out of desperation, Giaun's mother and father, who were then known as T'lexin and Rovert, and prepared to throw the child into the fire and cast out whatever Folk had inhabited her body. Their last hope before the flames was to have a raxura cast Miráke into her body. As the raxura began his prayers before Giauna, who had not slept for many days, T'lexin was already thick with child to replace Giaun. The raxura brought out his alters and figures of the Workers of Miráke and prayed for three days and nights at the cradle in the large room for the soul of Giaun, only a cycle old.

At first, through the prayers and rituals that the raxura preformed, Giaun was restless and ill-acted. By the second day she listened quietly, with her bright eyes open and fixed on the edge of her cradle. The third day, she closed her eyes and breathed easily. T'lexin and Rovert prostrated themselves at the ground in thanks for Miráke and gifted the raxura with the humble offerings which they were able to afford.

Raxura Míkael'klen left the home of Rovert with the tale of a savage child turned meek by the word of Miráke. Many of the few who strayed in their tasks to listen to the story disbelieved its variability, casting it aside as an exaggerated piece of truth fashioned to call people to the religion of Miráke.

Soon, Giaun came of the age of words, and her family waited for her to speak, perhaps first the name of T'lexin or Rovert, or perhaps first to name a common-day object. However, one cycle passed, and two, and she uttered not a sound. The people began to whispers of the girl who had been exorcised at the price of her voice. Giaun with her black eyes shining was four cycles old when she first spoke and dispelled the vicious rumors of muteness.

She was gathering wood with the local children when a man of Gleaño stepped upon a stump from a felled tree and began preaching the words of his faith. The children generally ignored this evil Sinner, being much to young to care much for the adult path of religions, but Giaun stood still in the center of the gathering ground, her wood dropped haphazardly at her feet and her black eyes closed.

The others soon gathered her fallen wood into their own arms and left her alone in the grounds. The Sinner stepped from his platform of nature and ambled over the Giaun. He reached out a long finger to touch her face.

"Little Daughter, do my words move you so?" he asked affectionately, stroking her gray cheek tenderly.

Giaun screamed; one high, unbroken note. People working in the fields glanced up, then dropped their work and ran towards the sound of the shrill voice. When the arrived at the location, they found a wide-eyed Sinner, trying desperately to explain his faults. T'lexin grabbed Giaun and shook her; once; twice; a third time until her eyes opened and her breath ran short.

Giaun's black eyes were cold as she surveyed the group before her, her body trembling. T'lexin was sobbing at her feet, thanking Miráke that he had given her daughter a voice to speak as other Nebari. Rovert took Giaun's hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it.

"And the hands of the Sinner were as Tarkaan's as they slid the fire across my flesh and burned the layers protecting my soul, trying to rip it away with a furious pull." A silence met Giaun's speech, for she had spoken a passage of the holy book of Miráke. Quietly, T'lexin and Rovert ushered Giaun away from the crowd and into their home.

Giaun spoke more, but her words were hushed and few. Perhaps people were frightened that she would speak the text of Miráke against her, for not many dared make her cross. In her fourth and fifth years, all of Tiatcon and many in the neighboring villages converged to Miráke, and many a believer flocked to the house of Raxura Míkael'klen to hear his tale of the infant girl possessed by Tarkaan.

When Giaun was of age to go to weekenly services to the Temple of the Tiatcon and worship her Lord Miráke, she was carefully given several new dresses to wear, in the many layers that was fashionable for young children to attire themselves in. Like a dutiful daughter, Giaun wore the dresses.

When she reached the Temple of Tiatcon, where the Miráke was the only god worshipped, Giaun stopped before the doorway of the Temple and spoke. "O my father," she said in a lilt voice, "why must I dress above those in the corner?" and Giaun pointed to the back pews left for those who were not land owners and therefore could not be full members of the Temple.

"O my dearest daughter and the light of my eyes," her father replied, "those people do not own the earth and work it to pay for their memberships into the Temple. Without land, they cannot be members of the Temple and must sit in the back."

"Are they sinners, my father?" Giaun asked. A few of those in the corner who heard her glanced up and viewed her for a few moments before they averted their eyes. This daughter of the land was dressed in her finest so that she may enter the House of Miráke. Giaun raised her voice when her father did not answer. "Father?"

"No, my daughter." The admission was unwilling. "They are not sinners." Rovert laid a heavy hand on Giaun's shoulders. "Come on, now," he told her. "We have to head on up to the alter to offer your first gift."

"Father, you must understand what I am about to say to you," Giaun said in a thick whisper. "I feel so unworthy at the moment. I must humble myself before Miráke." She bowed her head. Rovert watched her, her closely cropped hair smooth on her head. Carefully, and slowly, Giaun removed all of her dresses until she was in her under-robes. Fastidiously folding the outer-robes and dresses she had been wearing, she placed them at the end of the pew.

"I feel more worthy to accept his love," Giaun said. "From now on, I will dress as this while I worship Miráke. It is the only way to fully be in tune with our Lord Miráke." Giaun serenely sat cross-legged on the mats arranged the floor of the pew. "These mats are so much more comfortable than those hard benches up front must me, Father; please join me. I feel closer to Miráke and his earth already. I feel true humility."

"My name is Urnia Thali, born to Corte'in and her husband Marizpu," Thali spoke quietly. She disentangled herself from John, then walked backwards, slowly, and reached into the ship. D'argo tensed, a low, menacing growl coming out of him. Smiling slowly, Thali took out a dark black piece of cloth, then fastened it around her shoulders with the top button. When it fell freely, it reached ankles. John was strongly reminded of a medieval witch's outfit that children of Earth often dressed in for Halloween.

"I am ten cycles old, as of almost exactly four monen ago." Thali began button the rest of the cloak. "I was born and lived all my life in A'runki, the capital of Nebar. As you may know," Thali motioned towards Chiana, "A'runki is the governmental and religious center of Nebar." Thali's soft smile turned hard and she closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she hugged herself and rubbed her arms. "I grew up in the Temple of Giaun, raised as a Prodigy."

"Less likely than one would think," Jool spoke. "As Chiana pointed out, you are quite young to be a Giauna. And I haven't heard any news of a new Prodigy. And even if you are a Prodigy, you'd be out training for your eleven cycle."

"And how many cycles were you a Popsicle?" John asked. Jool gave a sharp outtake of breath, but held her tongue. "Thought so. You didn't have that 'fridge wired for news reels."

"Do you think I had a choice on whether or not I wanted to be a Prodigy?" Thali spoke sharply, then drew the hood of her cloak over her head, leaving only a shadowed face. It reminded John of a turtle withdrawing into it's shell when threatened. "I was selected at three weekens. I was raised in the Temple from that day on; never setting foot outside unless it was on and off the launch for the ships that I had to train on." She began walking towards the door into the corridor. John matched her stride, which was slow and almost thoughtful. "It's cold."

John glanced around at the others, but he didn't see anyone with a face that looked as though they had the same opinion. Jool looked slightly affronted, probably still hurt from when he'd teased her; D'argo looked anxious to get back to his ship, nothing more; Chiana looked . . . nervous. But not cold. None of them looked cold, or even slightly chilled.

"Pilot, wanna raise the temperature a few degrees?" John asked. Chiana raised an eyebrow at him. John gave her a half-grin, saying without words what she knew. It's a kid, Chi, you know that. I take care of kids.

"The temperature would be less than optimum, but not to the immediate discomfort of anyone on Moya," Pilot said. "There, I've raised it by three degrees. That should be within the comfort range."

"Thanks, Pilot," John said, walking into the dining area. "You look half starved, Thal. How would you like something to eat? Then you can talk once you're feeling better." Jool gave a hiss of disapproval but didn't say anything, obviously not wanting another snubbing by John so soon after the first.

Chiana walked to the refrigeration unit and took out some food cubes. Reaching into the cupboards, she brought out a plate and a cup. She tossed the cup to D'argo, with instruction for him to fill it, before setting a helping of food cubes in front of Thali. "Eat."

The clear look of uncertainty Thali gave the platter reminded D'argo of how John had looked when he had first come aboard Moya; amusing him almost to a level that he laughed out loud. He hastily cleared his throat to hide the chuckle that had come unbidden.

"What is it?" Thali asked after a moment of observation. She picked up a cube and took a tentative bite before putting it down on the plate. Chiana watched as the girl swallowed without chewing.

"They're called food cubes. You haven't ever had them before?" John grabbed a few off of her plate and threw them up into the air, catching them with his mouth. A peal of laughter came from Thali. John stood and bowed. "Thank you. Thank you. You like me. You really, really, like me!" He clutched his chest dramatically.

"Crichton, stop behaving like a child," Chiana scolded. "You look farhbot; you know that, don't you?" She pushed him down in his chair. Grinning, John grabbed her wrist and pulled her down on top of him, pinning her arms to her side. "Jo-o-hn," Chiana squealed indignantly. "Stop!"

John released her, giving her a shove that sent her tumbling onto Jool. Chiana straightened her clothing and glared at John from her new perch on the other side of the table. "I think," she said sniffle, "that you asked the girl a question."

"Uh, yes," said Thali, appearing flustered at having the attention thrown back at her. "I've never even heard of food cubes before. My education and life was sheltered." She hooked her long hair behind her ears. For the first time, John noticed that her hair was the longest he had ever seen on a Nebari. He tried to recall where it had reached to her back, but she hadn't turned around without having the cloak on. "The taste is interesting."

"Why do you say that your life was sheltered?" John asked, snatching another food cube and tossing it up into the air. This time, he purposely missed the cube and caught it just below his chin.

"I never left the Temple." It was the second time she had said this. John cast a side glance at Chiana, his only Nebari-link to the girl. Chiana, however, was busy with her fingernails and chose not to look up. "I grew up immersed in my religion; taught extensively in past histories of Nebar; tutored in mathematics and sciences; yet, I was never given access to the knowledge that there was any real difference between the cycles I studied and the ones I was living."

John glanced at Thali. "You're how old?" he asked in a strangled voice. "I couldn't pronounce those words until I was about twelve years old, and I was fourteen before I even started any real schooling in them."

Chiana giggled, as much from John's use of years instead of cycles as from any real mirth. "Don't worry, John," said Chi in a comforting tone. She leaned over and pulled Thali's hood down; Thali remained stationary, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. "I didn't stay in school long enough to study them. Frell, I don't think I stayed on Nebar long enough to study them." Chiana gave a short laugh.

Thali looked down on her plate. Slowly, she spoke. "I'm sure Miráke forgives you for your unconscious rudeness towards me," she said. Chi gave her a grin and a cocked eyebrow. "You don't touch the hair of a Giuana, nor even a raxura, unless you are dressing it."

Chiana tipped her head to the side and stood up. She walked over to Thali. "I thought you didn't want to be a Giauna anymore," she said. "Why should me touching your hair bother you?" She reached out and took a long piece of the thick hair and drew a finger down it.

Thali bowed her head in submission. "Forgive me," she said in a low monotone. "I am ill-prepared for the behaviors I've encountered. I will try hard to comprehend and learn to act as you do."

"Pip," John said in a dangerous voice, "stop being mean to her. She doesn't understand. She's not used to being treated normal even by Giauna standards, if I caught on right. You said you were a Prodigy. That's why you were given the ten month study guide instead of the yearlong course?"

"Excuse me?" Thali looked at John with a bewildered expression on her face. He wondered if she was purposely changing the subject. "I haven't encountered those words before. Would you care to fill me in as to their meanings in Commonday?"

Chiana grinned and desisted with Thali's hair, instead going to ruffle John's affectionately. "John grew up in . . . let's just say he crew up on an isolated colony in the uncharteds that developed it's own dialect. Months can be translated into monen; years can be interpreted as cycles."

"Wow, Pip, I didn't know you knew all those words apart, let along strung together like that in a compound sentence," John said, putting his feet on the table and his hands behind his head in his usual laid back fashion. Chiana smirked. "You're been working on your homework, haven't you? Mighty proud o' ya, honey."

Chiana pushed his chair over before leaving the room. John gave a yelp of protest as he was thrown to the floor. "I'll be in my room, talking to DRDs, if anyone needs me," she said without a backwards glance. D'argo and Jool glanced at John, who shrugged with a grin. They knew what Pip was talking about.

Thali watched the scene, fascinated. These people spoke so many different tongues, yet they all understood each other. If she had not been school in Ancient Nebari, Commonday, Luxan, Delvian, Interon, Scarran, and Sebecean before she was allowed her translator microbes to be reactivated, she would not have been able to tell the difference in them.

Except for the Sebecean. He was different. His words were no Sebecean, no matter what any person might tell her. Thali knew that he spoke not only a different language, but a different dialect than Sebeceans. The use of ye'er, of munth; that odd accent he had; the way he drew out his vowels in a slow manner; all pointed to a non-Sebecean colony, perhaps of Sebecean-Interon/Interon-Sebecean half-breeds.

Yes, that could be it. Thali picked up the food cube she had dropped while watching Chiana push John over. The act had been brazen and shocking to Thali, but she watched it with a rather pleased feeling. Thali took a bite. Eurgh. She would never get used to this food.

She wished herself six cycles old again; naive enough to think that everyone would always treat her as she was used to; knowledgeable enough to know that she was a very lucky child. Thali hadn't known it then, but her days of luck grew shorter and shorter as her years grew longer and longer.

John had turned back to her. "So," he said, taking another food cube, "tell me more about your childhood. What did you do besides study? Or is that all you did? Read? Read? Read?"

Impassively, Thali watched him. For some odd reason, this Sebecean who might not have been raised a Sebecean gave her a sort of half-thrill. He had caused her to laugh, something that she thought she had forgotten to do many cycles ago. Finally, she spoke, because she knew that he would get impatient with her. "I had recreational activities." John choked on his snack. Thali paused, then slapped him on the back, firmly. "Are you feeling better?" she asked him.

She noticed that Jool and D'argo were snorting; so this was the way that they treated shipmates around here. Thali wondered what the other crewmembers would be like. Possibly there would be some younger ones, to teach her how to play those games she had seen little Nebari children playing from the window in her quarters.

"I'm sorry," he said. Thali wondered why he would be apologizing. She looked at him, waiting for him to further explain his actions. "It's just that . . . did you say recreate?" D'argo let out a guffaw of suppressed laughter and Jool had turned bright red.

"Yes." No use asking them to give her more details. With the way that this Commander Crichton talked, she'd get the full story in a few microts. She wondered how a man with such a unreserved personality had climbed the ranks so easily. She concluded that he must have made the men love him, like Tsarin of Blein'i, the fearless leader who had gone first into battle and last into camp while the Holy Wars were first being fought.

"It's just that 'recreation' is used by Peacekeepers to mean, uh, the act of, uh, sexual intercourse." John looked down while he spoke. Thali smiled, then she frowned. She knew that the act of frowning caused her to look unattractive, and that the commoners would react well to rule if she were approachable looking, but she couldn't help it.

"This Leviathan has no control collar on it," she said. "I do know this much from my studies of histories Peacekeepers always place a control collar on their captive Leviathans. Otherwise, the pilot of the Leviathan may flush everyone out into space, Starburst away, and find freedom. If a Leviathan initiates Starburst with a collar on, the effects are . . . deadly."

Thali began coughing. Listening too it, Jool got an odd look on her face as she listened to Thali. "That sounds like a very bad cough you have," Jool said, rising. "Perhaps if you'd follow me to the med bay I can find some herbs to treat you with. It sounds as if "

"I thank you for your consideration, but I am perfectly fine." Thali said it quietly, her eyes cast downward in a submissive manner. "I just have a bit of a cough at the moment." Thali glanced at her small arm, then pushed up a sleeve to her long robes. She studied a wristwatch for a moment before pulling her sleeves back down.

Crichton made no mention of the fact that she had a wristwatch. He didn't want to appear ignorant; though, he did have a sneaking suspicion that D'argo was interested in the watch. Jool just glanced at it and walked out, muttering something about knowing a bad cough when she heard one and Thali would be come crawling to her when the time was right.

Thali pushed her plate of food cubes away from her. Wordlessly, she got up and away from the table and walked to the doorway. She stood there for a moment, looking at D'argo and John.

"I'm not breeching protocol when I ask to be lead to my bedroom, am I?" Giaun asked in a thin voice. She placed a hand on her gaunt neck and took a deep breath. John and D'argo jumped up, scrambling to take her to her quarters.

"Sorry, we weren't thinking," John said, flashing her an apologetic grin. He gave her a wink as they walked the corridors in her slow gait. It was catching, the way she moved smoothly, as if she were on camera and wanted to make certain that every frame caught her essence. Of course, she was a little ten year old kid who'd come out of the middle of nowhere and had no idea what Earth was, so he doubted that was why she moved smoothly. Itwas, he reflected, something she probably learned at the temple.

"Obviously not." It took D'argo a moment to figure out if she was joking or not. He decided that she was joking, so he let out a low chuckle of appreciation. He stopped at a doorway into some quarters and keyed them open.

"Here you go," he said. Thali walked into the room, looking around her with bright eyes. A DRD was following her surreptitiously, but she gave it no other than a customary glance before her eyes rested on the bed.

"Is it always so far off the floor?" Thali walked to the bed, jumped up, and sat down. Her feet dangled from the edge of the bed. "I'm not exactly sure if this will be safe." Thali didn't elaborate.

"Don't worry about falling; if you do, I'm sure a DRD will alert Pilot. Right Pilot?" John spoke the last part into his comms. Thali tilted her head, trying to take in the shape and the workings of the comm. D'argo saw her pupils dilate and traced her gaze to the comms.

"Yes, Commander Crichton. I have already assigned a DRD to monitor Thali, at the request of Jool," Pilot said, his voice low and steady, as if he was busy with other things.

"We'll be locking you in your room," John said, moving to the door and sidestepping the DRD neatly. "Watch it, bud. Anyway, it's just a security precaution. We don't know you, you don't know us, anything could happen."

D'argo saw her gulp and close her eyes. She moved her lips silently before speaking again. "I will be fine with this," Thali told them. "I will be able to manage." John had no idea what she meant by this melodramatic statement, but an understanding came to D'argo's eyes.

"She hasn't been left alone before," he said simply. John looked at Thali sharply. "Raxura are always surrounded by their fellow students. They are not allowed to be alone because suicides were not uncommon when the religion became more complex and harder to learn." Thali said nothing. "And she's probably had guards with her at all times. She is was valuable to them."

Thali shook her heads. "No, not guards. Never guards. I had teachers." I had teachers, she thought, but they never taught me anything beyond what I could have read for myself. They only watched me and punished me, but never taught me.

"Do you want me to get one of the girls to bunk with you until you get used to it?" John had paused at the door, his hand resting on the framings. "I'll comm Chiana." He waited, his blue eyes on her expectantly.

No. Chiana didn't trust Thali. That much was plain. What had happened to Chiana to make her so distrusting of her own people? When she had been growing up, everyone had been polite to her; quiet and soft-spoken; respectful; almost too much so for Thali's liking. Yet that was the way things were. She never imagined that having someonenot treat you as a Prodigy wasn't exactly what one would hope for.

"No," she said. "I'll be okay. I flew the ship over by myself, didn't I?" She went to her bed and removed the cloak she had been wearing, once again dressed in only her robes. She rubbed herself and then watched the two men.

"Uh, yes," said D'argo, "so, we'll be going now. You can draw the privacy curtain like this " D'argo demonstrated, "and we'll probably get you a comm in the morning. Is everything okay?"

For a microt, John thought he heard a high-pitched screeching sound, but it was gone almost instantaneously. "I'm fine," Thali said, pausing her hands at the first top button behind her heavy braids. John decided that he must have been imagining things and left.

(asterisk)

The next morning when Jool got up, she went to D'argo in the corridors and asked where Thali had been left. "I want to give her a medical examination," she explained, "because I really do think that she's sick, even if she denies it."

"I think," D'argo said, "that you are just being pushy. Thali is fine." Jool vehemently denied this accusation, in a loud and high-pitched tone. "I take it back," D'argo said, smiling at her. "While you're at Thali's quarters, could you drop off a comms for her?" He told her which room Thali was in and strode down the corridor towards breakfast.

"Luxans," muttered Jool. "You really can't have a normal conversation with them. And yet without them, there would be a gaping whole left in the histories and evolutions of the universe." She turned a corner and came face to face with Crichton.

"Same as all guys. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em." Crichton, as usual, made little sense, but Jool said nothing and walked on, carrying the comm in her hand. If John Crichton wanted to say enigmatic things, she wasn't going to ask him to explain it.

When she reached the room that D'argo had specified, she keyed open the door and walked in. She found Thali sitting in the middle of the floor, staring at the DRD. "Pilot, how long has she been like that?" Jool asked with a quirky grin.

"For about an arn and a half." Pilot's voice contained mirth as he continued. "It didn't seem to be all that strange, so I didn't tell anyone about it."

"What are you doing, Thali?" Jool asked, sitting cross-legged next to her. Thali glanced up and then looked back at the DRD. "I have your comm for you," Jool said, handing it to her.

"Thank you." Thali took the comm and fixed it on her collar. "I'm trying to figure out the diagnostic repair drone. It seems to have personality, yet it also seems so mechanical. I cannot figure out if it has a soul or not."

"It's a part of Moya," Jool said gently. "It's what gives her the ability to see us . . . and they repair her and . . ." Jool continued along this vein for some time. Thali stayed sitting, listening politely and offering no commentary until the end.

"I beg your pardon, Jool, but I knew that information." Jool was miffed, but Thali smiled as she stood up. "I did like hearing it from a fresh perspective, though. Thank you for taking the time to tell me these things." Thali walked out of the room and down the corridor. "I would appreciate being taken to my ship. I left some things on it that are invaluable to me."

Jool jogged and caught up with Thali. "Yes," she gasped. "I'll take you to your ship. I do have some questions for you about your ship. You didn't answer very many questions last night."

"My ship first, questions later, please," Thali said sharply. Then she stopped walking. "I apologize for having such a short temper with you. I will try to prevent it from happening again."

Jool gave a shrug. "It happens more times than I'd care to admit on this ship. Moya is a big place without a full crew, but having this many people with each other at all times can be a bit unnerving." She keyed open a door and saw Thali scan it anxiously for her craft. "Over there, in the corner."

"Thank you." Jool gave an inward sigh. This girl kept asking for forgiveness over the oddest things, and frequently. Jool watched as Thali climbed into the ship an opened the hatch.

"Jool, where are you?" Chiana's voice came over the comms slightly irritated. "And where is Thali? She isn't in her room and D'argo said that you were going to give her a med check, but you aren't in the med bay, either."

"We're at her vehicle, Chiana, and she's getting some things out that she says she needs." Jool pulled a hair out of her own mouth and scowled. She heard Chiana give an exasperated sigh.

"Well, just don't let her try to take off in it," Chiana said, sounding as if she were only half joking. Jool ignored the remark and glanced at the craft. Thali had really been in the ship for quite a long time. Jool scrambled up into the ship and glanced around.

It looked to be a simple cargo ship, upon first examination. There weren't any things in the ship that looked to be out of place. Ducking under a low doorway, she glanced around for Thali. Jool didn't see her, so she looked for a possible room off the main area. Opening the first door she came too, she saw Thali sitting in a chair, packing several syringes into a black box.

"What in the world are you doing?" Jool asked, the panic and annoyance in her voice rising. She rushed forward to Thali and grabbed one of the syringes she had and looked at it.

Without pausing, Thali picked up another syringe and placed it in the black box. "I'm packing up the medical supplies I brought with me. Vitamins and other such things. I don't think that should be too much of a problem." Thali's voice lost none of the calmness and serenity that it had given at all other occasions.

"This isn't just vitamins," Jool said sagely, "this is golitczerum. It treats golitcz, which is a quite deadly and rare Nebari disease characterized by fatigue, heart palpations, thickening of mucus in the lungs, chronic pain, and eyes that are colored differently and see specks or spots in front of them. It is a genetic mutation that children are born with and the symptoms don't arrive until the child is six or seven cycles old."

"You do know a lot about Nebari health," Thali said quietly. "I've never met anyone who isn't a Nebari or a Sebecean before. No Sebecean was interested in knowing anything about Nebari health or religion. I am under the vague recollection that Interons are a peaceful race who don't believe in weaponry: that would mean that you would have plenty of time to create an intellectually superior race."

Jool gave her a genuine smile while placing the syringe into the black box. "I was a quite a student among my peers," she said. "But that is beside the point. Why do you have these things? I can see where you'd want to bring vitamins, but these bottles " she pointed to several shelves full of bottles labeled with various things, "are for golitczerum and korinchaerum and yeoliterum, all of which are very rare."

"I brought these things to make certain that I would always be prepared. We had several of each of these and I knew that wherever I went, they would not be as well stocked as we were. I believe in always being prepared. If you aren't prepared, what will happen? Then you will find someone on a planet that suffers from korincha or something equally as dangerous and you won't have the medical supplies to help them."

"That's ideological. And highly illogical. Those diseases are so increasingly rare that the odds of finding someone with the problem are so small that it's insignificant." Jool grabbed the two boxes that they had filled and walked out the room. "Korincha is characterized by thickening of the lips and tongue, loss of control over eye muscles, weakening ability to flex your fingers, and a rather horrible habit of coughing up blood. I couldn't imagine ever finding someone in the universe with it on our travels."

Thali gave a shrug. "Well, it might. And wouldn't you be sorry if you threw those out the disposal like they were yesterday's garbage?" Thali walked out of the room and shut the door. Going to a white plate about the doorknob, she palmed it. It glowed red for a few microts before turning back to white. Answering the questioning look that Jool shot her, Thali said, "It locks the door. Come on, I'll go and finish my story to you all."

Jool followed Thali's slow and methodical walk out of the ship with a sense of something hidden beyond her line of vision. Whatever it was, Jool was confident she would find it.

Walking the corridors into the command with his usual gait of boyishness, Crichton came just in time to see Chiana scowling into the walls of Moya. Tiptoeing up to her, he put his hands over her eyes.

"Guess who," he said in a high pitched voice. "Don't forget to take into fact I melt metal." Crichton blew into her hair and caused it to fly up a bit, grinning. Chiana wasn't as amused as Crichton was, though, and showed it when she reached up and dug her nails into his flesh.

"John," she said in a steely voice. He backed up a step and looked at her as she turned to face him, her eye flashing dangerously. "I am not in the mood for your little games. I don't trust that 'Giauna' as far as I can throw her." She bit her lip; suddenly aware of an Earth expression she had used. "Frankly, Crichton," Chiana tipped her head to the right, "she came here like a barken out of hezmana and I'd like to know why. She's a Giauna, if we are to believe that at least. There are too many unanswered questions forthat line of thoughts."

"I know, Pip, and that's why we're going to ask questions. Questions are good, remember?" Crichton touched the tip of her nose before giving it a tweak. "C'mon, it's been, what, a day since she came aboard? You're acting as if she's going to blow us all up in holy war." Ouch, he shouldn't have given her that thought.

"Taking life for the sake of Miráke is one of the Nine Holy Grievances. He finds it amusing, but nothing more. I highly doubt that Nebari would waste a body just to take down us." Chiana walked into command and sat down heavily. "It's just that there are too many things I can't figure out."

"The most pressing being?" John sat down next to her and touched her elbow, making it clear that he wanted her face him while she was talking. He smiled when she gave an exaggerated grimace and rearranged herself.

"How she came this far away from a Nebari colonization in such a small craft. I've never seen a craft that size able to starburst. It's a merchant, or cargo, craft, and it's usually part of convoy. You know, big ship with tens of tiny little ships in it goes to a planet, sends down supplies with tiny ships, then collects the ships and moves off. I've asked Pilot and he says that Moya didn't notice a convoy anywhere in her scanning area in the past monen and a half." Chiana pushed her hair out of her eyes.

"And why couldn't we see the craft? A ship that small has no cloaking device, nor does that give any reason for us not being able to actually see the craft once we had turned on the view screens." Chiana added more to her list of questions. "Of course," she said, "I could be totally out of proportion with this and she's telling the truth in everything."

John grinned, then pulled Chiana toward him and whispered, "I doubt you're ever wrong," before dashing away, leaving Chiana a heap in the middle of the chairs. Chiana good-naturedly muttered some dark curses towards him, but said nothing loud enough for him to hear.

Chiana heard an exclamation in the hall and Crichton's voice apologizing over something. She tilted her head towards the corridor and tried to figure what had happened. Chi gave a wry smile when she heard Thali's laughter and Jool's characteristic displeasure adding their voices to John's.

The three of them came in a few microts later, with Crichton telling Thali that she'd have to get some pants soon, else, "I wont be able to carry you on my shoulders like I used to do my kid sisters."

"I'll be too big before long," Thali said, smiling. "Then where will you be? You won't have anyone to carry on your shoulders or anything. Will it disappoint you terribly?" Thali swatted at something in front of her face, blinked, then continued speaking. "I'll try to stay as small as possible."

"Aw, don't worry about it, Holly Golightly," John said, walking over to Chiana with a grin on his face. "I've yet to see a Nebari who's very much bigger than Chi here. I think I could lift you for several cycles yet." As if to prove this fact, he leaned over and grabbed Chiana and placed her, squealing and kicking, on his shoulders. From her viewpoint over his shoulders, Chi saw Thali clapping her hands and laughing.

"Put " Chiana hit John, hard, on his shoulder, "me " another hit, "down!" She gave a furious call when he turned suddenly and faced Thali. "I swear, John Crichton, if you don't put me down this instant, you will never see Earth again! Your precious wormhole knowledge will be remembered forever as a blood spot in Moya's corridors."

"I know wormholes!" Thali said triumphantly. Chiana managed to roll off of John and onto the floor. Thali gave a sneeze. Crichton walked over to her and handed her a handkerchief.

"Sure, and so does half the known universe," Crichton said. "Blow," he instructed her. "You don't gotta cold, do ya, Holly-Doll?" He grabbed the handkerchief back from Thali and rubbed her nose with it until it was bright blue. She said stationary, her head slightly tipped, watching him.

"No," she said. "I don't have a cold. I am slightly chilly, but nothing like it was beforehand. I forgot my coverings in my room." Thali reached up and rubbed her nose. "Itches," she said, yawning.

Jool came forward. "We came to command because Thali said that she'd be answering some of the questions that we have for her. I myself have many questions I wish to pose to her." Jool's expression gave the impression that she wanted to have those questions answered first.

"Pilot," Chiana said, "could you please call D'argo into command?" She touched her index and middle fingers to her brow, then let her hands drop to her side.

"Certainly, Chiana," Pilot's voice came. After a microt: "D'argo is on his way to command. He seems, uh, distressed at having been called away once again from his module. His mood may be described as, uh, foul."

"Duly warned and notice taken," John said congenially, watching Thali yawn. "Thank you, Pilot." He turned to the group. "Maybe we should write down the questions we have for her, so if we forget them while waiting for our turn we can check 'em. Or," he added, "if we have doubles we could just toss them out the window."

"There aren't any windows here, John," Thali said. "At least, none that can open so that you may deposited your garbage. I wouldn't do it, even if they did open, because not only would that depressurize the room fairly quickly, it would also be littering, and that is not a good idea."

"Holly-doll, it's just a figure of speech." Crichton's blue eyes danced merrily as he turned to Thali. She bit her lower lip, apparently thinking hard.

"Oh," she said after a moment. "Now I feel rather silly." She cast her eyes downward, but a smile played up on her lips. Finally, she chuckled. "I should have seen that, shouldn't I have?"

Chiana reached over and placed a hand on Thali's shoulder. "It's okay, girl, I didn't catch it right away, either." D'argo came into the room. "Oh, there you are. Okay, D'argo, just write down questions you want to ask Thali."

"Oh," Crichton said suddenly. "We can have a lot draw after we're done with it. Think about it, we just write the questions down and then we put them in a hat and draw out the question we'll ask. Not just a hat," he said horridly, anticipating the crew's objections, "but a box or in a pile or whatever."

"I think it's a good idea," Jool said, after the briefest of pauses. "That way, nobody can bicker on how we picked his idea over hers, or visa versa. It's actually pretty well thought out, Crichton." The closed-lipped smile she flashed him indicated, along with her raised eyebrows, that she hadn't expected something of the sort from it.

"Why is it even the newest member of the crew can diss me?" Crichton asked sadly, giving the group a sorrowful look. Chiana tried her best to cover a smile and look as bored as possible; Jool gave a shrug; D'argo looked ready to tear him about; and Thali giggled.

"I think, Johnny-boy, it is because you are so obviously inferior to their species." Harvey was back; this time dressed in the same robes as Thali, except that they were black. He had a large white pillowcase in his hand. "They know that whatever they say will be true, and if it isn't true it will be so close to the truth that they can still say it."

"Harvey," John muttered to himself. Chiana's smile faded and she watched him, fascinated. Thali suddenly dropped to the floor and curled into a ball. Jool rushed to her side, where Thali was chanting. Chiana barely glanced away as D'argo tried to wake Thali. "Didn't know you were into the Ku Klux Klan."

"You pierce my heart, John," the neural clone said. He placed the hood on and grabbed the cross he had at his feet. "I am merely getting ready to celebrate Easter like the Spaniards do. Don't you remember from your trip to Spanish? Holy Week?" He placed the cross on his shoulders. "You are a burden that I must carry. Your sins are my sins, and, let's face it, your sins are plenty."

I don't have sins, John thought desperately. I've only been living the way that the universe is set up. It isn't my fault I have to kill to survive in the uncharted territories.

Chiana touched Crichton's shoulder. "John," she said. "No, what, John? What are you saying?" Crichton looked at her then, with a pained expression on his face, and she widened her eyes in fear. "John?" she asked, backing away.

"Pip, it's okay. I just, I saw Harvey and he was . . . he started preaching to me about my sins and it really pissed me off, ya know?" John touched her face. "I'm okay. I put him in the dumpsters, along with his holier-than-thou attitude." He turned and saw Thali. "What's wrong with her?" he asked, concerned.

Chiana looked down. "When you started your little mind conversation, she sort of followed suit. You two make a cute pair." She knelt by Thali's body and pinched her. "Wake up, girl. John's out of it."

Crichton sat down on the floor and pulled Thali into his lap. Soon, she stopped chanting and her eyes focused. "Hey, Doll, I think you need to take a chill pill. You can't go around scaring us like that."

"Her vitals had slowed," Jool said from his left. John shot her a look.

"I'm sorry, John, but I got scarred when you left." Thali shifted in his arms, then stood up slowly. Crichton scrambled after her. "You were there, I mean, but something else was too, and it took over part of you. It scared me."

"You could feel me?" John asked. Thali's eyes clouded over in confusion and he sighed. "Never mind," he told her. She nodded. Chiana shook her head in Crichton's direction; he squirmed under her displeasure. "Are you tired?" Crichton asked, when Thali yawned yet again. Jool stepped in and protested, saying that they were there to get answers to questions, not baby-sit a little girl. Crichton quieted her.

"No, I'm not tired," Thali said horridly. "Just my mouth is tired, not my whole body." She gave a puzzled look when everyone laughed, but nobody explained it to her and she didn't ask.

"Well, I think I'll take that mouth of yours to bed," Crichton said. D'argo gave a low growl in his throat and Thali protested. "Heavy D., man, this is just quicker way for you to get back to your ship. Besides, she's tired. You don't want her talking herself into a deep sleep, do ya?" D'argo turned and left the room. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty, I'll take you back to your room and tell you a story."

"What story?" Chiana asked, following them. Crichton smiled at her and Chiana blushed, realizing how childish she must have sounded.

"Sleeping Beauty. It's a Disney tale. After she's asleep, I'll tell you the Grimm Brother's version. Holly-doll, you're walking kind of slow," John looked down at Thali. She tried to quicken her pace, but it was apparent that she was wearing at this speed. John paused them for a microt, then picked up Thali and carried her on his hips. "Almost on my shoulders," he told Thali. Chiana just grinned and followed them into Thali's quarters.


	3. 

The Prophecy

_Author_: Keren Ziv  
_Disclaimer_: I don't own Farscape, I wish I did, but I don't.  
_Rating_: G  
_Category_: action/adventure, I guess.  
_Author's Note_: Hellllooooo. Sorry this has been so long in coming. I seriously **meant** to post it right before I left for Texas, but I went to the bathroom and when I came back, the computer was packed. Surprised me quite a bit. Then I reread it and noticed that half of the middle – the middle, mind you – was missing, so I had to search my documents before I posted. Good thing, too, because it would have been hard to understand otherwise.

_Part .03_

__

No longer was the congregation of the Temple of Miráke limited to only those who owned land, and no longer did the people of the Temples dress in extravagant outfits to impress those near them and fill others with envy. The men and women of the congregation dressed in simple robes of white colors while the raxuras dressed in darker colors, oftentimes choosing black.

Giaun first heard from the workers on the sixth anniversary of her birth. It was less than two cycles from the time when she had first been allowed to visit the Temple in her village. She was a young, vibrant child with dark blue eyes instead of the customary black.

Her voice in the choir was workeresk; many would beg her to sing the hymns for them after the traditional services were finished. Giaun tried not to deny any of the ones who asked her, but was unable to fulfill the wishes of everyone who wanted to hear her sing.

She took great delight in memorizing the Book of Miráke. Giaun would repeat the words and phrases to herself during the weekendays; many times while she doing her chores around the farm; after her prayers had been completed; and oftentimes after lunch, when the people were traditionally given time to rest in the heat of the day. When Templeday came, she would say them without worry, her pure voice quiet and calm.

It was during a recitation of hers before the congregation that it first happened. Two children a Templeday were chosen out of the congregation to perform in a recitation of verses from the Book. When Giaun stood before the altar and began speaking, her voice had gone through the room in a wave of easy tones.

Suddenly, the child went rigid. As her eyes rolled back into her head, her body fell to the floor with a noise that shook the congregation to their very bones. The ruxara rushed forward, being trained in the medical areas as part of their duties. They found Giaun curled into a ball; clutching her knees to her chest; and muttering the name of Miráke over and over.

The seizure lasted only for about three hundred microts. As her body slowly released itself from hold, she was able to look about the congregation gathered around her. Her bright eyes gleaming, she smiled as she stood, slowly, and walked stiffly toward the platform.

She finished her recitation. As she spoke, the people drifted back to their seats, their eyes riveted onto her form while her pure tones wandered through the words of her god. After she finished, instead of stepping down, as customary, she began to speak candidly.

"I have heard the voices of the workers of our Lord Miráke," Giaun said breathlessly, her eyes ablaze with passion. The stir went through the congregation. This child, the frail one with the large eyes, was speaking words that no one had yet spoken. "They spoke to me and told me to follow our Lord and to walk in His footsteps. They told me fear not, for fear is our greatest trial. They told me I had done well with this congregation and Temple, but I must move on."

Inclining her head in a manner that placed honor on the congregation, Giaun closed her long lashes over her dark blue eyes. "I pray that I go with your support." The congregation stayed in silence, digesting her words. Was this child saying that she would travel and spread the word of Miráke? She was much to young to do that. She was acting foolishly and yet . . .

A small boy stood up on his mat and began clapping. It was quiet yet shocking; the noise muted out the breathing in the room as it seemed to fill the Temple a hundredtimes over. The boy wavered, then stopped; he glanced around the room with fearful black eyes. As one, the people of the congregation stood up and clapped.

Keeping her head down in a respectful manner, Giaun slowly walked away from the alter. Her gait was deliberate; her face was contorted in pain; it was evident that her hundreds of microts in her clenched position had caused physical discomfort. The clapping had long since ceased before Giaun had made it down the aisle to the doors of the Temple.

Her breathing ragged, she opened the doors and stepped out into the bright sun. A murmur went through the congregation as the door closed: "Miráke has placed His faith into the hands of a child."

When the Temple finished services two arns, Giaun was found with several small bundles at the livery stables. When questioned about what was in the packages, she replied, "The whispers of my Lord as He instructed His workers to speak them to the prophets of old are encased in the Book of Miráke. I would not go to teach His words without His book."

Her travels began immediately. She had been instructed, she said to the raxura following her as chaperons, on just barely the insistence of T'lexin and Rovert, to travel to the Capitol city of Nebar, Sa Fierte y'n Boron u Re Das, and to speak at their Temple of All.

Sa Fierte was so named because, according to the histories, the King who had united all of Nebar under one rule had died in the last battle of the Uniting War, and his last words uttered had been, "Sa fierte u re das." The miracle is yet to come. The place of his death had been marked as a holy place, with a special Temple to his god erected in his honor. The Miracle of Boron is Yet to Come was born with the blood of the soldiers staining the grass where they laid their stones of foundation.

Once she arrived at the Temple, Giaun requested audience at the non-sectarian meeting that was specifically for those who wished to sample all services. She was denied. Twice more she asked for a chance to speak, and twice more she was answered with nays.

Giaun attended the services daily. For over three weekens, she attended, and she listened to the words of the Unbelievers and they burned her heart. On the third weeken she had been there with a Templeday, she rose unbidden in the final microts of the service and walked with obvious stiffness that was oddly transformed into a graceful smoothness.

Once she was there, Giaun spoke at the pulpit. "I am Giaun of T'lexin and Rovert. I come from the city of Tiatcon to speak in place of my Lord Miráke, almighty is his power. I come in order to ask you to search deep within yourselves and see the Light which Miráke casts down on the Path of your Life."

Several of the priests who had been rushing forward stopped in their tracks Delvian pa'u and Nebari raxura alike. Giaun's voice continued as she glanced steadily around the room. She was not yet seven cycles old when she began her preaching, but she held her audience captivated.

After Giaun was finished speaking to those in the Temple, she did not bow her head in a submissive manner; she instead walked to the tables where the symbols and idols of the gods were displayed. Carefully, she picked up the elemental cross of Miráke and took it to the altar.

"The Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are expressed in each of these points," Giaun said, touching each of the corresponding points on the cross. "This represents the Spirit of Miráke," she touched the top point, "and it is His Spirit which enables our lives to be lived." Giaun placed the cross on the altar. "I put my life in his hands, do you?"

Within two weekens, the Temple of All had been renamed Haven y'n Miráke. The statues and texts of the Unbelievers had been removed and destroyed, quietly, in holocaust under Miráke. It was not by force that it was done, but rather by truth. Giaun stayed at the altar, speaking, for arns. When she retired for the night and the people dispersed among the public, her story was told.

When a weeken had passed from her first impromptu service, Giaun gave another. However, the sheer volume of people that had come to hear her speak overwhelmed the Temple, as bountiful as it was, and she moved her teachings to a large field. It was the truth, you see, which the people traveled to hear, and it was the truth which lead Miráke to His rightful place as the one and only Lord.

After the service, the people began to chant in Oldtongue. Sa fierte y'n Boron ux dasen. Sa fierte y'n Boron ux dasen. The miracle of Boron has come. It was amazing how many remembered the lines from the stones that were the archway over the entrance to the Temple. Tears went down the faces of every man and woman as Giaun spoke again.

"I will leave and spread His word. I tell each and every one of you to speak to your mothers and your fathers and neighbors and friends and enemies and tell them of Miráke. Spread His word yourself until we will do for religion what Boron did for government.

"We will unite Nebar under Miráke!" With those prophetic words, Giaun stepped down. The people of Sa Fierte y'n Boron u Re Das walked to the Temple steps and prayed for their Lord Miráke to help them come closer to the elements and in so doing help them come closer to him. As they prayed, they kept their eyes to the inscription above them.

And so Sa Fierte y'n Boron ux Dasen was born out of the mouth of a child and the heart of our Lord. It has been said that Sa Fierte y'n Boron use Dasen Evamo will come when the Prophet Giaun returns again.

Chiana went into command the next morning and found Jool and the child Thali sitting down and studying some things that Pilot had put up on the screen for them. With Thali's eyes unwavering over the information, her face expressionless, Chi gave a shudder. Jool had a brow furrowed and her usual frown was in place.

"These deaths are horrible," Jool said after a microt. "Look at this one, Thali. Look at how high his testing scores were. His intelligence numbers was off the chart of anything any Nebari has ever been recorded as testing. Then, three days before he was to turn eleven, he goes into a clenching meditation and never comes out of it. It's discovered he has a genetic disease that went undetected."

Chiana sat down and looked at the chart. "Tahalkitol," she said. "I remember studying his life in school. He was supposed to have been very beautiful. I dunno if I believe that. Ya know propaganda on everything sort of dissuades you from believing anything they tell you."

"Propaganda?" Thali was indignant. "I will ask you to please refrain," her voice became icy, "from insulting the government in my presence."

"You ran away, didn't you?" Chiana said. Thali narrowed her eyes. Jool put down the papers, ready to witness a good fight. She wondered if Thali would be at a disadvantage her in robes and long hair. Chiana was older and could move more easily, except for the corset she wore, so Jool was putting her money on Chi.

"I was a mistake that they needed to correct . . ." Thali began. She paused, seemingly searching for words.

"If you will excuse me," Pilot's voice broke through the silence, "but Giauna Thali is not permitted to explain anything unless the entire crew is present. I do remember you all agreeing on that last night. Commander Crichton is still sleeping and Ka D'argo is, at the moment, walking with your doll down the corridor. If you will only wait for me to wake the commander and to direct D'argo to Command, I will be happy to do so."

Thali smiled at the clamshell. "I thank you, Pilot. I will refrain from speaking until the crew is assembled. Please, let the commander sleep and don't keep D'argo from his tasks." Pilot blinked out after nodding.

Jool shivered. "I hate that," she said. Thali raised an eyebrow. "You just melt into one character from another. With Pilot you are so . . . adult and mature. Sometimes, though, you don't seem older than seven or eight cycles. It's unnerving." Jool gave a sniff.

"I apologize," Thali said, sounding surprised. "I had no idea that I was doing any such thing. I will try to remain the same all the time, but," Thali conveyed frustration, "I had no idea I was doing any such thing. My personality, to me, has always been the same. If different situations bring out different parts of it, I act unconsciously on that."

Jool paused while Chiana laughed. Thali spoke in a bewildered voice, "I don't understand."

Jool gave Chiana a withering look, which ceased Chi's merriment. "Never mind," Jool said. "Act like you normally do. If you were on my planet, we'd label you a mimic and send you off to study in mimicry."

"What sorta jobs does mimicry offer?" Chiana asked, interested. Thali turned her head toward Chi and gave a nod, which Chiana returned.

Jool shrugged in answer to Chiana's question. "Dictation; secretarial skills; acting; oral historian . . . the list goes on. There are many different jobs that one could employ with that skill. It could also go to waste as the subject advances on a different career path. It all depends on the variables."

"Commander Crichton is awake and approaching command. Do you wish for me to notify D'argo that he is needed there with the rest of the crew so that we may begin questioning?" Pilot asked, his face appearing on the clamshell.

Thali looked up. "I'm ready," she said.

D'argo came in about two hundred seventeen microts after John entered command. He sat down silently and stared around the room pensively for a few microts, then took from his person a large envelope, the contents of which he emptied upon the table in front of him. Settling them face down the table, he spread them all equally apart in several rows and columns.

"Pick," he said simply, indicating the rudely cut papers with a sweep of his hand. Thali hesitated, perhaps to decide in her mind which she wanted to chose. D'argo smiled. "They aren't curses when you read them aloud. Only questions."

"Right," Thali said. "I shall pick " her hand wandered over the table before descending on a paper "that one." She opened it up and read aloud from it. "'And why did it happen?'"

Everyone blinked. Thali smiled. "Well, it's a joke then, isn't it?" She cast a glance around the room. "Did I do it wrongly?"

Pilot began to chuckle from the clamshell; soon, Crichton let out a huge burst of merriment; the others followed suit. Thali grinned, hugely enjoying herself. D'argo composed himself and instructed her to read the paper, and, "correctly this time, young Thali, or this meeting may drag on forever." He looked down at the papers on the table as he said this, shrugging at the sheer number of questions.

"Inquisitive minds need to know," Crichton muttered. D'argo cast him a look, but didn't ask John to explain. What he had said was easily enough understood, but the way that Crichton had spoken it made D'argo think that it was a sort of saying from Earth that only a human would find special significance in.

"'Why did you get frightened when John went fahrbot . . . signed . . . Jool." Thali glanced over at Jool and smiled slowly, her thin face giving forth a sort of innocent glow that her dark blue eyes couldn't convey. "He wasn't in control anymore and it frightened me. Didn't you notice that?"

Jool stared at Thali with interest. "Notice what?" she asked eagerly. D'argo almost groaned. Jool was making a case study of Thali, as if she were a specimen in an experiment that was being conducted. As long as the child didn't get harmed, D'argo concluded, it would be perfectly allowable for Jool to continue along this vein.

"Everyone sort of murmurs their thoughts in their heads . . . Moya, Pilot, Chiana . . . everyone." Thali swept her hand across command and scattered several of the papers that she and Jool had been studying. D'argo picked them up and stacked them neatly out of arm's reach from the young Nebari. "Each has his own voice and distinct . . . level. John's suddenly went down and a much louder voice took his place."

"Wait a microt," Chiana broke in, "you can hear our thoughts. And you didn't see any use in telling us that?" D'argo became uncomfortable with the idea. What if the child could see his thoughts at that very moment? He glanced uneasily around the room, looking for reassurance in the faces and finding it with duplicate expressions of uneasiness.

"More like just the broadcast that you're there." Thali bowed slowly towards Chi. "It is a talent that all giauna's are able to perform. We must master it, and several other things, before we continue on to the highest level."

D'argo growled deep in his throat. "I don't like the idea," he declared.

Thali gave a quick laugh. "Don't worry, Ka D'argo," she assured him. "I can't see your thoughts or your innermost secrets. We are merely required to know if someone is around in case of assassination attempts."

Crichton gave a start of surprise. "Somebody would actually try to assassinate you?" he asked. "I mean, I thought you were number one where you were." He gave her an arched brow.

"There are rebellions against the government," Thali said. "Of course they would try to kill off somebody of great importance. Giauna's have huge political importance on Nebar, New Worlds, and the Colonies."

"Next question," D'argo said. He motioned toward the papers and had Thali pick one. "Read it aloud," he told her. Thali took the paper in her thin fingers and flicked it open before speaking.

"'Why couldn't we see your ship on our viewscreen?'" Thali gave a thin smile. "One of my more brilliant developments," she said. Her smile seemed to be an almost self-congratulatory smirk. "While in my studies concerning the travel in space, I was given an assignment to produce a machine which would be able to override visual functions in ten of the most common ships.

"One of them was the species Leviathan. It was quite complicated to work the schematics on a living being, but it was completed. I was able to make a rudimentary example when I left, based on my plans and notes." Thali motioned toward the door. "If you go to my ship, you will be able to see it under the Starburst function I installed."

Crichton lifted a hand. "I need to take out two of my questions and rewrite them," he said. D'argo agreed with him privately. "Her answers usually give way to more questions than previously asked. It's kinda confusin'. But it's educational, at least."

"Same here," Chiana said, reaching over D'argo and grabbing some papers; he inhaled deeply of her scent, a mixture of fruits from Luxa and spices from a commerce planet he had visited early in his life.

"Care to explain the fact that you installed a Starburst on a ship which is decidedly too small to even carry the chamber?" asked D'argo in a sort of growl. Chi backed up with a few crumpled papers in her fist. He worried that he had frightened her.

"Another one of my assignments. Our small fighters had speed and agility, but they lacked the ability to travel vast distances in space. Also, most Starburst is imprecise and drains far too much power from the ship's resources. The charge takes too long with what is common technology today."

Crichton cleared his throat. "Uhh," he said slowly, "I think you may have lost me there. Does anyone else feel inadequate here?" He cast a beseeching look around the room.

"You should always feel inadequate when compared to a Luxan, John," D'argo said swiftly. Crichton gave him a look that was worth whatever deaths D'argo was dying in his head. "Next question."

"Let's just 'tally' up the extra questions," Crichton said, giving everyone a wink. They stared at him blankly. He looked around the room with his eyebrows raised. "It's a pun, don't you see? Tally and Thali are the same words and so when I used it . . ." Crichton's voice trailed off.

Thali ended the silence. "Sound's like pre-Ancient Sebecean to me, which is what our Old Tongue was based on." Everyone, including Chiana, gave her a puzzled glance. "Oh," Thali said in exasperation, "don't you study anything? Nebar wasn't fully civilized with a writing system or a worldwide language until Sebeceans started their missionary work. Back then they weren't called Peacekeepers; they were called United Forces of the Worlds of Soil, or something equally difficult to translate into Commonday. Ancient Sebecean and Ancient Nebari were around at basically the same time, and were, for a while, quite similar. However, Nebar rejected rule from Offworlders and our language took its own course down history and changed, as did . . . Oh, I can't pronounce the Oldname for it . . . Commonday says Sebecea."

"Are you a walking history book?" Crichton asked after a microt's lull. D'argo doubted that Crichton would have been able to speak without interrupting the young Nebari if Thali hadn't of had to take a deep breath. The art of oration was clearly a pastime of which she enjoyed immensely.

"I simply know what I was taught. I have amazing recall for things which interest me," Thali said. She picked up another slip of paper and peered at it intently. "I don't know this writing," she said after a moment's pause.

Crichton slipped forward guiltily and placed out his hand. "That would probably be mine," he said. Thali handed him the slip and he read aloud from it: "'What is your favorite color and why?'" Crichton added a high-pitched half-whispered to exaggerated gestures while reading and Thali giggled.

"I have to pick a favorite?" she asked. Crichton nodded. "Hmm . . . I like black. It's so warm, and so difficult to discern from the other colors at night." D'argo had to admit that Crichton's question had certainly eased the tension in the young child's shoulders.

"Those darn rods just don't have a chance, eh?" Crichton asked her. Thali started, then laughed. "It wasn't laughably funny," he added. "Y'know, it was maybe grin funny, or genuine unasked for smile funny, but not laughably funny."

"I received two words at the same time," Thali said. Chi nodded from behind her, so D'argo assumed that she had too. "I heard birch whipping rods, and then I heard the term rods."

"Ahhh," Crichton said. "This time the translator hiccough wasn't my fault. I do believe it is a first. Mark the date, if we know the correct one! I've actually been the victim instead of the offender!"

Thali blinked once, then once again, before reaching for the next question.

"This is all idiotic." Chiana leaned over the table and swept some of the questions off. D'argo glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "We don't need to pick out questions to know that we all want to know why in the world she left, how in the world she executed her plan, and when had she left. Obviously she's been running away from the hideously stupid rule of Giaun. Sometimes I wonder why it's been left alone by the government for so long. Uh . . . what's wrong with the kid?"

What was wrong indeed? Thali was in a corner, clutching her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth. Chiana wasn't certain but

"Is she . . . naked?" John's voice came out in a sort of strangled whisper that was hilarious to hear. Chiana almost giggled to herself, watching John as he politely kept his eyes off of the young child. "I mean, uh . . . yeah . . . uh, naked?"

"It appears to be so," came Jool's amused reply. "I have no idea why. Hey, girl, Thali, get your clothes on." It was like Jool was ordering a dog around. Sit, Spot, sit, John thought distractedly, keeping his eyes on the wall in front of him. Ninety-nine DRDs on the fritz, ninety-nine DRDs. Tighten a screw, fix one up, ninety-eight DRDs on the fritz . . .

Thali didn't answer in any form they could distinguish. Chiana heard coming from her a low sort of hum, as if Thali were chanting very quickly and quietly to herself. "Oh, frell," she said, "I know what's she's doing. She's cleansing herself."

"Cleansing herself by stripping naked?" D'argo couldn't hide the snort of laughter that came out. He silenced himself at a glance from Chiana. "What good does that do her?" he asked in a polite tone.

"It's supposed to show submission to Miráke," Chiana said in a dubious voice. "I don't really see why they do it. Giaunas live in poverty anyway. They dress only in robes provided by the government. The idea is that the body of a giauna is too sacred to be insulted with finery."

John glanced down at Thali. "It doesn't seem to me that this girl has had sacred exactly stamped on her forehead. Look at that there. Seems to me that she's either lying or there are some interesting stories she'll be able to tell us when she comes out of this cleansing thing . . . she does come out, doesn't she, Chi?"

Chiana defiantly refused to tear her eyes away from the willow-work of pain etched into the pale skin of Thali. John called her name once more, and she spoke, low, "She'll come out. It's self-induced. I shouldn't have spoken like that in front of her, but I wasn't . . ." Chi's voice trailed off. "John," she said, turning to him, "there are only a few reasons to allow the body of a raxura or giauna to scar. The only ones I can recall are punishment. They are violent. And . . . usually reserved for those they wish to excommunicate but can't."

"Frell." John let the word hang in the air. "Think she's some sort of trap set up against us? The only way she'll be able to get back to full power is if she brings us to the Nebari, who in turn will sell us to the Peacekeepers for Scorpy's promise of help when such and such a time comes . . ."

"No," Jool said. "Chiana is mistaken. She didn't study those more mundane parts of her religion when she was younger, I can see. If the Temple of Giaun wishes to rid themselves of someone and they aren't able to do it the legal way, they simply send them to the Judgement World."

"But what about the markings on her back? She's been beat viciously!" John moved an arm to indicate Thali. "Chiana says that the beatings are to punish, you say that it's actually death they punish with. Well then, what about these . . . whippings or whatever inflicted those wounds? They can't be self-inflected, unless, D'argo, you'd like to tell us about the flexibility of Nebari."

Chiana glared at John. "Care to test that theory later on?" she asked. John shrugged. "I thought we had more important matters to discuss. Instead of bickering amongst our selves, why don't we ask ourselves why this child has, for three solar days, kept us in suspense."

Jool nodded. "She has raised more questions with her coming than I could suspect any one person could do." Jool looked towards the door before continuing. "Though, that extra John was a bit of a shock . . ."

"It's Rip-Into-John-Day," Harvey said, dressed in a red mini-skirt and high heels. John ignored him.

"Is she breathing?" Chiana asked after a moment. "I mean, seriously, take a gander down at her. You can't see her chest rise and fall. It's like she's dead or somethin'." Jool rushed forward. "I'd like to be known that I did not kill her. If anything, she killed herself. Suicide, okay?"

"D'argo, please carry her to med bay so that I can examine her more thoroughly. I don't see any signs of life, but perhaps my instruments can detect something of life in her." Jool walked out of the room with D'argo at her heels.

"Great goin', Chi, ya killed her!" John said, following D'argo and Jool out of the room. He paused at the door and looked at Chiana's worried face with a hidden grin.

"Ya don't think I killed her, d'you, John?" Chiana asked anxiously. "Cuz I didn't! She just went into that coma on her own. Not my fault at all!" She trotted after him in the corridor. "You were there!"

"One minute you were all for throwing her out the airlock " John began.

"No out the airlock, John. I never said that. I just said I didn't trust her. I can not trust someone, can't I?" Chi reached John's side and touched his shoulder. "Don't fool wi'me, John," she said. "You don't think she's dead, do ya?"

Thali came out of her 'coma' to use the phrase that Chiana used three arns later. When she did, Thali glanced up with slow movements and blinked several times. Finally, she clenched her body and stretched out, mimicking the movements of a feline unconsciously.

"So you're alive," came an amused voice. Jool walked over and pulled out something that she stuck to Thali's skin. "Don't fidget," Jool reprimanded, "all I'm doing is taking your temperature."

"These are imprecise by point three one hundredths of a whole," Thali said quietly. Jool paused, glanced at her, and then went back to work, effectively ignoring the Nebari. "I was joking."

"I assumed that," Jool said. "That little tidbit of information was so mundane that one would hope you were joking." She reached down and ripped off the patch before placing it on a white plaque.

"Little vicious there, aren't you?" Thali edged away from Jool. "Why am I here?" She glanced down and seemed to be searching for something. "Where," she asked, "are my robes?"

"They're right here," Jool said, producing the aforementioned article of clothing. "I took the liberty of washing them while you were asleep . . . or whatever you were." Jool tossed the clothing to Thali. "Did you know that your hearts had almost completely stopped beating?"

Crichton walked in. "Pretty nerve-wracking," he admitted to Thali and Jool. "Jool at first couldn't find the beating at all and poor Chiana nearly joined you, wherever you were. Of course, when we did find it, I felt really bad for teasing Chiana."

"Teasing Chiana?" Thali asked, wrinkling her brow.

"I kept ragin' on and on at her how she'd made you die and it was all her fault . . . 'course when you lived I was real glad, but still . . . it was real fun to tease Chi." John set a plate of food cubes on the table next to Thali.

"And if I had been dead?" Thali asked.

John shrugged. "Woulda been right, Doll," he said. Thali watched him for a long while before she turned away, obviously confused. Jool waited for Crichton to say he'd been teasing Thali, but he didn't.

Bristling, Jool took over that part of the conversation. "He was only having a bit of fun at your expense," she told the young Nebari. "It isn't as if he was tryin' to bet on your life."

Thali glanced up, her eyes large. "Oh," she said. "Of course not. I hadn't assumed so, Jool." She closed her mouth so quickly that her teeth snapped; she smiled, warily.

"Why were you out for so long?" Crichton asked her. Thali glanced at him, confused. "And, while we're on the subject, why were your vitals down so low? Why did it happen at all?"

"I'd like to know the answers to some of those questions, too," Chiana said as she entered. "I feel like such a stranger to Nebari customs when you're here, Thali."

Crichton immediately jumped in, much to Jool's amusement. "You were only a kid when you left the Nebari Prime, Chi. You didn't have time to learn them. And you said it yourself – you and Nerri raised yourselves. Who was there to teach you things?"

Chiana smiled, glancing downward demurely. Jool wasn't certain if she had died or was hallucinating, but it looked like Chiana may have blushed. Jool cast a look at Crichton to see if he had noticed, but he had turned back to Thali.

"I was out for the number of microts or arns – whichever be the case – that it was necessary for me to be out. I use the time to cleanse myself of unworthy thoughts. When somebody insults my religion or government, it hurts me . . . even if it's me having the thoughts. I try to keep the hurt inside but something compels me to cleanse myself. So I meditate." Thali looked around, her eyes large. Blinking, she glanced at the floor and waved her hands in front of her face. "Dots . . ." she murmured. "Anyway," she continued," when I meditate, my body slows down so that I may truly connect with my Lord Miráke."

Crichton paused before commenting. "So," he asked, "did you grok everything better afterwards?" Thali raised her eyebrows. "Oh, c'mon!" he said. "It's a classic in science fiction!Stranger In A Strange Land! Robert Heinlein! Writer of Starship Troopers and Friday . . . The Day After Tomorrow . . . and wasn't there something about the far side of a moon?"

"Whatever you say, John," Chiana said, giving Thali a wink behind her hand. "Feeling up to telling us exactly why you're here, by the way?" Chiana gave Thali a lopsided grin, trying to cover up the amnesty she felt towards the young girl.

D'argo strode in, Chiana and Jool's hair-doll in his hands. "I've forgotten to give this to you twice," he said impatiently. Jool hurriedly snatched the doll away from the Luxan's large hands.

Chi gave D'argo a teasing look. "I thought it looked cute up there," she said to him. Glancing around the room, Chiana walked slowly up to him and touched his shoulders. She could feel him shiver beneath his touch. "Did you think it looked cute?"

"A warship," D'argo said, "does not look cute." He swallowed, then stepped away from Chi. "So," he asked, "what were we all doing without me before I came in?" His voice held an amused note in it that everyone saw.

"We were just interrogating the prisoner," John said with a grin. "We'll fill you in later on what we got outta her. I think Chi asked her another question, but I can't remember it at the moment."

"I wanted to know," Chiana reminded him, "why she'd left her life in the Temple?" She looked around the group. "Hasn't that ever occurred to you?" She could tell from the looks on their faces that they'd thought of it only fleetingly, if at all.

"I wasn't satisfied with what was being given to me at the Temples that I lived in and I wondered if the world held something more." Thali paused, seeming to chose her words carefully. "I searched out that fact and . . . well, I'm still searching out that fact."

"Did you leave because you were getting hurt?" John asked quietly. Chiana glanced at him for his audacity, quite surprised that he hadn't gone the easy way with the child, as he usually did. Thali didn't say anything. "I'd like an answer," he told her quietly.

"I was beat because I didn't measure up to the standards that they had set for me." Thali said quietly. "My masters knew that if I was allowed to become stagnant in my studies, I would not be a good prod . . . well, I wouldn't be a good giauna."

"Do they normally beat their giaunas?" John asked. "I'm asking because I've heard that it is actually a practice that is frowned upon. I just wanted to know, where you a special case or was it like a group thing?"

Thali looked up and stared steadily at John. Chiana saw something in her eyes that she couldn't quite place – was it fear; was it shame? The girl's eyes were to light to be able to understand easily. "You are not supposed to mar the body of a giauna," she said after a moment. "There are many rules concerning what you may or may not do to giaunas. But there are certain circumstances that one may take into heart, and the rules change slightly."

"For example?" John's voice was low and soothing. Chiana recognized this technique as one to put Thali off guard; it was to relax her. Chi wasn't certain that it was working.

Thali shrugged, casting her eyes on the floor. "For example, nobody lower than a giauna or a master is allowed to see the naked body of a giauna. However, with the Pure Son in the temple, raxura are allowed to bath and dress if he or she is unable or needs assistance.Our Pure Son could not speak evil."

"What's a Pure Son?" John asked. Chiana wondered if he had momentarily forgotten his earlier question or if he was still trying to disarm Thali. She hoped it was a diversionary tactic, though with John's attention span it was hard to tell the difference.

"The Pure Sons were three sons born to one woman – one could not speak evil, one could not hear evil, and one could not see evil," Jool explained quickly. Chiana cast a glance at Jool; this wasn't the entire story, but it was a good synopsis . . . at least a beginning of one.

John gave a short laugh. "We have those!" John said excitedly. "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil! You put your hands over your ears, your eyes, and your mouth!" Chiana hadn't known that about John's culture, but it made her glad that he had found a common thread.

"Yes, well, one is deaf, one is blind, and the other babbles with innocence of a child," Chi said quickly. "One is kept at each and every Temple of Miráke. Uh . . ." she paused. "Having one that cannot speak evil is probably the most rare. Oftentimes, they are the most intelligent of children, yet they seem to live in a sort of world of their own."

"Autistic," John murmured to himself. Chiana whispered the strange word to herself; tasting it on her tongue. Nobody in the room spoke up after John's comment, so he began speaking again. "And what about hitting a giauna?" he asked.

Thali looked towards John Crichton, but Chiana had the feeling that she was looking through the human, towards something Chi could not see . . . towards some memory of the past that she was drawing upon for the conversation.

"I wasn't a normal giauna, in any case, John Crichton," Thali said finally. Chi watched her. "As a young child, I was willful and disobedient, and I often questioned the teachings that were being set before me." She jutted her chin out slightly more, in a sort of defiant manner.

"You got in trouble for asking questions?" John inquired. He didn't wait for an answer. "So if you didn't understand something in your, uh, sacred text of John –"

"Book of Miráke and Book of Giaun," Thali corrected automatically. Chiana grinned. She knew that John had misspoken the names purposely, to draw Thali into the conversation without having her think too deeply about anything she was speaking about.

"Right," John said. "So if you didn't understand something in your Book of Meer-raw-kay," John said the name awkwardly, slowly, and Chiana saw Thali wince. He paused and began again. "Miráke," he said, grinning, saying the name correctly this time. Thali nodded to him with a look on her face that reminded Chi so much of Zhaan she gasped softly. Thali was playing along with John's games. "And if you didn't understand something in your book of **John** –" ("Giaun,"  
muttered Thali almost absentmindedly) "you weren't allowed to question them."

"What right do I have to question the will and words of my Lord?" Thali asked. John raised an eyebrow. "When I was a young child, I wanted to chase after my balls when I dropped them and they rolled into the foot-traffic in the market streets, but I was always held back, much to my chagrin. I didn't understand why. I now understand why, but the same principle applies to it."

"So you kept asking questions?" John asked.

Thali shrugged. "Not the same ones. But they seemed to come without my giving it a second thought to whether or not it would be an appropriate question. More often than not, it was not appropriate. But," she added, "I was never punished badly from about the age of six years old. I enjoyed my life there."

"You liked life there?" Jool asked after a microt's lull. Chiana rolled her eyes. Hadn't Thali just said that? Jool could sometimes be rather dense.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Thali. "I had so many things to do. My studies were very interesting and fun for me. Besides religion I did histories of the colony worlds, science, classic literature . . ." Thali sighed. "It was great."

"So why did you leave?" John asked. Chi scratched her nose, contemplating Thali's possible answers. There could be so many reasons, so many lies, that she could give to them.

Thali looked up, startled. "Excuse me?" she inquired.

"What's your whole plan with this? Running away? Why did you run away?" John looks at her steadily. Chiana shivers, as much from the ill feeling she is getting from Thali as the ice in John's words.

"I don't want to die, John Crichton. I believe that the government has found out what I have suspected all through my training. I am not worthy to be a prodigy. They would rather erase their mistake than let me live to my eleventh cycle and disprove them. I would rather hide and assume a new identity than die."

"Why didn't you lie when you first met us, then? Why didn't you assume a new identity?" John found himself playing devil's advocate. He wanted to believe the girl, but after four cycles in the Uncharted Territories, he couldn't help but be wary of even the most innocent of packages. What she had just described didn't sound at all like the small girl she looked to be, or even a young adult.

Thali looked down, seemingly to chose her words more carefully. "I don't know," she said finally. "Something told me that I'd find allies here. Was I wrong?"

Begrudgingly, to themselves, each of Moya's crewmembers admitted that the girl wasn't wrong. For even if she had a command carrier on her rear end, she'd be welcome among the crew. It was their curse, Chiana reflected.

(asterisk)

As time has a habit of doing, it passed for those aboard Moya rather quickly. The days were began with shifts in command and ended with sleep for the crew members, only to return to the beginning of the cycle and perform the entire thing over again.

Giauna Thali, being to young to be assigned a shift in command herself, took to following John Crichton around the ship as he completed his tasks and duties, asking him questions all the while.

His ship, the Farscape I module, held a great interest for her, and she watched for arns on end as John repaired and tinkered with his toy. He would tell her stories of Earth, as he did that, and she much loved to listen to him as he recounted his tales of childhood. It shocked her, at first, to find that John was not Sebecean.

"Not Sebecean? Are you a Sebecean-Interon hybrid, then?" Thali asked, glancing at Jool across the table where they were eating dinner. "Is she your half sister or the like? You do have a rather high forehead. I'm surprised I didn't put two and two together far before this."

John placed a hand quickly to his hairline in shock. Jool looked at him rather as if to dare him to say something while Chiana smothered giggles behind D'argo's impatient growls. "I'm not Sebecean," John said indignantly. He took his hand down. "I'm full-blooded, too." Thali raised an eyebrow. "I'm human," he explained. Off of Thali's bewildered look, John elaborated. "I come from a planet named Earth. We don't have space travel . . . at least not like here. I'm on the other side of the universe, as far as I can tell. I was doing a test when I got shot through a wormhole."

Thali nodded. "This is the second time you've mentioned wormholes," she said. John paused a fork halfway up to his mouth and looked at Thali expectantly. "But, back to Earth," she said brightly.

Once, coming back following John around while he worked, Thali met Chiana in the corridor outside of Jool's quarters, where the privacy curtain was drawn. Peeking beyond the curtain, Jool saw that Chiana had in her possession several articles of clothing that she had washed.

Chiana stopped Thali with a touch on her shoulder. "You're spending too much time with Crichton."

"And you not enough time with him." Thali's words surprised Jool. What exactly did she mean by that? Jool was of the opinion that Chiana spent far too much time speaking with John than was necessary – almost as much time as the child herself spent with that frelling human.

Chiana chose to ignore the last remark. "Why do you follow him around like a lost nika all the time?" she demanded "You're always behind him while he is working in the corridors on parts of Moya, and you're always asking him questions; about the ship; about Earth."

Thali smiled. "I find him very interesting," she explained, as if to a child. Jool smothered a giggle that was threatening to alert the two speakers to her presence. Leave it to Thali to be condescending to no one but the only other Nebari on the ship. "He knows things about Leviathans that I've never had cause to learn. He has an understanding of biomechanoids that astonishes me, given his background. Also, he himself is quite a study. I've never learnt his species before." This last was said with a half smile, as if Thali was truly happy to be able to 'learn' John.

Chiana gasped. "You're studying him?" she asked. Jool could see no wrong in what Thali was doing. Truth-be-told, Jool herself was watching Thali with veiled interest, bordering on clinical fascination and cultural studies, hidden behind concern for the giauna's well-being.

"To truly comprehend the unbelievers," Thali said, as if reciting, "one must first learn about their histories and customs." Jool was of the mind that Thali **was** reciting something that she had learned quite a long while ago.

"If you learn about their histories and all that dren, then you understand them," Chiana declared. Jool could see Chiana's point there, and was interested to see how Thali would respond. "You comprehend them," she said, smugly triumphant.

Thali spoke again, her voice still monotonous, as if she were still reciting from some long ago learned textbook. "To know is not to comprehend. Rather, to comprehend is to know." Thali's facial expression softened at that point, and her following words are spoken in a more relaxed tone, thought it is still rehearsed sounding. "We know that there is a beetle on Nebar called cabul that lays its eggs in a circle of five, never four, never six, though we don't know why. We can't comprehend the meaning behind this action. Is there a sort of special meaning to the number five? Perhaps an aerial view from the predators who ingest it will outwit them. Perhaps the cabul has comprehended its enemies already."

"Ahh . . . so you want to know your enemy before you destroy him?" Chiana asked with a smirk that Jool mirrored behind the curtain.

Thali frowned. "We wouldn't destroy the beetle," she said, exasperated. "It is an invaluable lifeform on Nebar. It would wreck havoc with our ecological system and cause innumerable chain reactions to formulate, probably –"

"Cut it, girl," Chiana interrupted. "I left the Nebari Prime a long time ago; it and all of it's natural history lessons on insects and animals that inhabit the forests and animals that inhabit the plains and animals –"

It was Thali's turn to interrupt the speaker. "These things do not interest you?" she asked sadly. Jool frowned.

"I have to deal with what I think somebody will do right now – I deal with the fact that sometimes people do the unthinkable." Chiana was impatient, and it showed in her quick words and speech. Jool moved so that she could see the two conversationalists better.

"I don't deal with what might happen if somebody does the unthinkable," Thali said softly, so softly that Jool almost didn't hear. "I deal with what will happen when this or that is done."

"Then you will never be truly prepared," Chiana said, beginning to walk away. Jool cursed Chi and moved to the other side of the curtain, to see her for a longer period of time.

"Prepared for what?" Thali asked, skipping to keep up with the older Nebari's strides. Jool saw them reach the corner and half-sighed; she had wanted to witness the finishing touches to this conversation.

"Life." Chiana had stopped and was looking at Thali smugly. Jool could see how her mouth turned up at the corners in a half-smile.

Thali was indignant. "Why not?"

"Because life throws at you the unthinkable." Chiana turned and walked the corner. Jool wasn't certain who had won that argument, but she was almost positive that Chi came out slightly ahead in the end. Thali stood for a long while at the corner before turning back down the hall and going the way she was originally headed.


End file.
